Summer 2011 Independent Study

Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Change, and Innovation. This study will look at the psychological underpinnings of change and innovation in the knowledge/information economy.

Entrepreneur Project - Salinas Performing Arts Academy

Please review the shared document at this location:

https://docs.google.com/#all

thx

dh

Education in America

The history of education in America seems to have followed two courses. One, recently pointed out by a radio commentator, is that we generate the most educational research of any nation on earth, and use the least of its outcomes. The other is that we search the world over for the best approaches to education, import them, and screw them up!

Just this week, I was teaching in an English classroom for 7th graders. The approved curriculum, based on the California standards and the hideous no child left behind fantasy, has the teacher using a text that is essentially a script with pre-determined activities. As bad as that seems on the face of it, the activities consisted of drawing a circle around proper nouns, squares around pronouns, and underlining verbs. This is insane! 7th graders! These are activities for children in 2nd and 3rd grade!

Apart from being insulting to the students and demeaning to the teacher, there is the problem of instilling or reinforcing critical analysis and thought. Not once were the students challenged to evaluate the relative value of the idea in the text. Neither were the students asked to take a position and defend it with facts from the text. Given the lack of critical analysis inherent to activities and information on the web (where today's children spend much of their free time), the schools have an increased responsibility to demonstrate critical thought and to teach the skills involved in such thought.

By extending childhood in this way, we cripple those children who, for want of financial means or lack of pedigree, must contend with the public school system that was created and structured for an industrial world, and that has never been structurally questioned.

Data/facts/information are no longer the hallmarks of the educated - it is, rather, the skill set to find relevant facts and analyze their validity. Sitting in a classroom, lacking computer connectivity, drawing circles on paper with #2 pencils will, most certainly, not produce the world-shaking results we must have to maintain parity with the rest of the developed world.

If you have children in the public school system - act now! Demand more challenging curriculum and teaching approaches. Support your teachers, for they are the professionals that can deliver the goods for your children.

Week 5 Assignment 2 - Find definitions and other tools for QA

Quantitative Analysis

What Does Quantitative Analysis Mean?
A business or financial analysis technique that seeks to understand behavior by using complex mathematical and statistical modeling, measurement and research. By assigning a numerical value to variables, quantitative analysts try to replicate reality mathematically.

Quantitative analysis can be done for a number of reasons such as measurement, performance evaluation or valuation of a financial instrument. It can also be used to predict real world events such as changes in a share price.

Investopedia explains Quantitative Analysis
In broad terms, quantitative analysis is simply a way of measuring things. Examples of quantitative analysis include everything from simple financial ratios such as earnings per share, to something as complicated as discounted cash flow, or option pricing.

Although quantitative analysis is a powerful tool for evaluating investments, it rarely tells a complete story without the help of its opposite - qualitative analysis. In financial circles, quantitative analysts are affectionately referred to as "quants", "quant jockeys" or "rocket scientists".

Source: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quantitativeanalysis.asp

This site contains an effective point-by-point discussion of the merits and cautions of quant analysis: http://www.investopedia.com/university/fundamentalanalysis/default.asp

Another perspective from the world of complexity research and science:

Quantitative analysis is a process in analytical chemistry that involvesmeasurement of results such as quantities of substances produced, not just the nature of the reactions that produce them. All quantitative analysis involves counting or measurement in some manner.

It is critical in quantitative analysis to get statistically reliable and generalizable results. Features are classified and counted, and statistical models may be constructed as the scientist attempts to explained mathematically what has occurred. In the end, a properly-done quantitative analysis will be generalizable to a larger population between whom direct comparisons can be made. This enables the scientist to determine genuine properties of a substance and the items which are anomalous.

A quantitative analysis does identify core truths, but it does not necessarily describe a substance in a rich manner. All data is recorded in quantitative analysis as hard data – either the substance is X or it is not. Qualitative analysis, the other major type of analysis, allows scientists to describe items which do not easily fit within a classification.

Both quantitative and qualitative analysis are important to analytical chemistry.

http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Quantitative_Analysis

HERE'S A TOOL:

The Rise of R: A Tool for Quantitative AnalysisThe R programming language--- is an open source implementation of the S programming language, and is rich and well suited for data operations.

By David Wilson, Product Manager, Vhayu Technologies

http://www.r-project.org/

R is a statistical package first and foremost and contrasts with Matlab, a commercial and general analytical toolkit. R is an open source implementation of the S programming language, which is implemented in the commercial package S-Plus. It is freely available under the GNU General Public License on multiple platforms and can be downloaded at http://www.r-project.org. R is very similar in function to S-Plus (the syntax is nearly identical), contains built-in tools for time series, regression, etc., has graphing and visualization capabilities, and can be used as a programming environment.

Positioning Statement - Salinas Arts Academy

The Salinas Arts Academy is envisioned as an after-school performing-visual arts - and academic support academy that will:

Serve the jr. & sr. high school students of Salinas who may need additional help with academic performance and who share an interest in performing arts (theatre; music) and visual arts. Unlike traditional study halls and tutors, the Salinas Arts Academy will accomplish its mission by integrating learning & student development across the full spectrum of learning styles and modalities, integrating academic skill development with arts activities and outcomes.

Ethics Assignment 2 - Issues in My Business

The world of human resources, organizational development, and training provides ample opportunity for ethical challenges. The misuse of confidential information; the appropriation of another's ideas as one's own; and the manipulation of employee confidence for personal gain are just a few of the issues one may face in the human side of the organization.

As with any ethical issue, one must always go back to first principles - do no harm; act in the interests (long-term) of the organization; seek first to understand. The leadership of any organization, whether it is the CEO, Vice-President, Unit Manager, or team supervisor, has a responsibility to set the tone for ethical practice.

The specific ethical behaviors addressed by the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, executive oversight, audit procedures, and independent verification of results, provide a roadmap for all of us in business to develop policies, procedures, and best practice for delivering our services ethically.

Ethics & Accounting Assignment 1

I am troubled by the author's clear bias against any serious discussion of ethical behavior. In the section, "The Social Responsibility of Business", he casually refers to the idea of social responsibility as "politically correct" behavior. He puts Milton Friedman forward as a competing point of view. Friedman seems to want businesses to have all the rights of a free society without any of the responsibilities. Clearly, the failures of many of the businesses noted in the opening chapters found comfort in Friedman's "letter of the law" approach to business.

Clearly, with the worldwide possibilities of cultural and societal norms, an analytical approach serves the manager well. Taking each case on its merits allows the manager to evaluate the situation based on his and his company's ethical stance. The starting point is to decide that ethics are worth discussing, and from there the conversation can develop to encompass the various individuals and philosophies at play.

The Stakeholder Framework (p. 67) provides a straightforward approach to laying out the issues.

Takeaways: 1. Include ethics as an element in any decision to embark on a new/different policy or project; 2. Adopt a standard approach to including stakeholders in the discussion; 3. Recognize the validity of differing points of view, and allow for the possibility that you may be wrong.

Avoid harm and look for "the middle path".
dh