Competences and Outcomes - Article Example

Competences and outcomes al Affiliation The past 22 years entailed a personal journey exploring the field of education and this lead to an understanding that necessitated a study at UNC Chapel Hill. My parents had busy schedules and this made them neglect some of my childhood needs, though slightly took care of me. They decided to take me to a boarding elementary school. Here, students are expected to stay at school from Monday to Friday. Parents would then pick them up to home on the weekend. At boarding school, we had to do all the things by ourselves. I learned how to take notes in class and ask question after class because no one can help me a lot and accompanied me. When I did an assignment at night, I had to complete them on time because classroom would be locked, something that forced me to go back to the dormitory. The 3L English book was my first English textbook, and it helped me in developing Looking, Listening, and Learning skills. I still remember Unit 53 story about hide-and-seek, and we all enjoyed learning this unit. We even tried to play this game in English after class. After five-year English learning, I could talk about some daily topics fluently in English. Actually, I scored A in my graduation English test. This book laid my foundation in learning English. The five-year experience in boarding school helped me establish the ability to learn on my own and the self-independence in daily life. Therefore, now when I study abroad, I can adapt to the local life quickly and live independently. Self-independence has been one of my strengths. Teachers in boarding elementary school helped me became a self-independent person and established my perseverance. However, I have also learned to work in a group. Teamwork has been instrumental in building more confidence in me, gaining more experience as well as learning more through the interactions. After seven years’ middle school life and with a not bad score in university entrance examination, I enrolled Shanghai International Studies University- Xianda College and majored in English language and literature. With the dean’s support and my high ranking in the voting, I was elected as the president of the student union. While in this university, I did many part-time jobs on interpretation to improve myself. For example, I interpreted in UCI Women Road World Cup 2012 and 2012 Word Dancing Sports Federation- Shanghai. In the daily work, I contributed much to my departments such as the planning of thesis defense and the training the new secretary. Dean Elaine Y.Hu strongly felt that I should learn more in the field of education, especially in International Education, which is a new trend in China. She suggested me to study abroad and recommended the UNC International Education Pre-master Program. However, I had no idea whether the western higher education fits me or not. The subject to study was also another big issue I faced. To help me get the answer, Dean recommended me to join in a U.S. University visiting program. As a visiting student, I studied in California State University East Bay for nearly six months. It is the six-month experience that helped me decide to study in U.S. because I believed that can improve me. During the six months, I tried to observe and understand how American University worked and took three classes in the field of Business, English and Communication. The things that I passionately did were to talk on the campus with professors, the staff in the gym, school bus drivers, and American students. These conversations enabled me to discover what American education is and how to improve the Chinese education system. My desire is to develop more skills in M.A International education program. In International Education program, UNC School of Education, I take courses inside and outside of the school of education. These courses have student learning outcomes designed to help students acquire knowledge, skills, and abilities that by successfully completing them. These courses have been instrumental in building competence in me. They have also influenced me significantly in developing some beliefs, values and attitudes that have been supportive in making educational decisions in a global community. The studies included in the curriculum were on educational agencies and organizations, current research on international schools as well as management practices and effective leadership. For each issue on the syllabi, we have a deep pre-class reading then integrate it with a thoughtful and constructive participation in classroom discussions. Three excellent teaching assistants, working as facilitator of each group, use the teaching plan they designed to lead us to understand each point better. The analytical autobiographical essay shared in class engaged me in a critical, reflective analysis of my educational experiences. The project enabled me to relate these experiences to theories and research from international and comparative education literature. These analyzed experiences brought complex issues out into the open as positive forces for the recognition and affirmation of the impacts of comparative education experiences for my professional development in the future. In my every week my schedule, I read a lot and also explore all the way to benefit from these reading. I understand that I need to establish the capacity to thinking, research and solve the problem in international education. The EDUC 753: Introduction to Curriculum course aimed at surveying the nature of curriculum development and the contemporary changes as they relate to social aims, learner characteristics, and the social problems. The course looks forwards towards exposing students to the study of the curriculum so as to identify its pervasive structures and the interests that keep them constant. Throughout the course, students were expected to read and respond to the texts that look at the curriculum in terms of definition and nature. They were also expected to articulate the complexities of curriculum design. The course also aimed at making students develop deep knowledge about historical developments about curricular issues especially questions of power and societal values and ideology. In addition to that, they were also expected to start thinking through issues related to the curricular alignment, objectives, and assessments. It also aimed at looking at critical theories that identify those interests and advocate change. The knowledge I gained in this course helped me to critically analyze the influence of Dewey’s philosophies (Gregory & Granger, 2012). This ideology has been crucial in building competence in me. Dr. Xue Lan Rong’s EDMX763 Diversity and International Education course aims at introducing students to the development of the discipline of international and comparative education and to explore the historic, geographic, economic, political, cultural, and environmental impacts that have shaped and transformed education systems across countries and regions. The drive of this course is to equip students with skills of critically analyzing key issues and challenges in educational practice and policies. Students are expected to develop the knowledge, understanding, attitudes, and skills needed for educators to responsibly participate and contribute to the complex, a rapidly changing global community of the 21st century. Students were also expected to develop the ability to apply knowledge of global education, culturally sensitive and responsible pedagogies, and perspective of post-colonialism to comparative inquiry into different education systems in order to solve international and local education-related problems and contribute to social change and individual development. Through this course, I developed the capacity to think and write about, analyze critique, reflect on, and discuss issues in education, particularly global dynamics, conflicts or balance, problems, trends, reforms, and innovations (Bignold & Gayton, 2009). I did a research on Chinese and U. S. MBA programs. This research helped me in understanding the differences, in terms of education programs, that are there in these countries. The EDUC 533 Social Justice in Education course offers an examination of the role of social justice in education. The course aimed at examining how education can help create just and fairer societies, which ultimately contributes to high-performing education systems. Inequities in our societies have bases in political, economic, cultural and social institutions. Reducing these inequities will require efforts on all these fronts. In this, education is key both because it develops necessary qualifications for employment and because individuals and families fully believe education is key to their success. The course aimed at equipping students with the ability to explore multiple perspectives on social justice and examine the effort made at local, state, national, and global levels in bring more fairness in the society. Deliberations were to be fueled with readings that explore social justice both theoretically and practically for future teachers and concerned citizens. In this course, students were to examine, in particular, how different individuals are served differently by schools and within classrooms in particular. The work would be to determine what currently exists in schools and what could exist if we were to create educational opportunities that both met students’ needs and challenged persistent inequities. As a teacher, I will always remember that it is mission to treat every student equally and fairly. In my future professional practice, I will put a high value on such issues about discrimination, race, gender and color to explore the nature and solutions in teaching atmosphere. The Dr. English’s EDUC834 Organizational Behavior and Theory in Education course had an expected outcome in that, the students were to begin to understand how structure, culture, context, and power interact within and without educational and other organizations. This course was designed to acquaint the doctoral student with theories of organization so that the student can begin to see principles which lie behind system architecture in which people, structures, duties, skills and role relationships can be juxtaposed and configured and re-configured as a matter of matching organizational functioning to the tasks facing a variety of educational organizations. The course aims at helping students in explaining the progression of concepts relating to organizational structure and effectiveness involving classical and neo-classical concepts of organization. At the end of the course, students were expected to identify the dominant metaphors in use today to describe administrative performance and the strengths and weaknesses of each. There were also expected to apply concepts involving organizational power and how it is acquired and applied and the attendant issues concerning power It is also a course which will consider the structure and use of power in organizational life to force bureaucratic change, internally or externally. Students are expected to begin to understand how structure, culture, context, and power interact within and without educational and other organizations. In the words of Saul Alinsky, “As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be…that means working in the system.” (Ott, Shafritz & Jang, 2011). Understanding the system is what this course is about. EDUC505 Leadership in Global Educational and EDUC785 Program Evaluation courses intended to offer students with a working knowledge of a platform for international education program evaluation as well as equip them with leadership skills. Students were expected to have an understanding of the purposes, benefits, and the importance of program evaluation. They were also to compare and contrast different approaches to program evaluation and research. Another objective was to develop an evaluation plan and proposal for an international education program. They are also expected to develop and use data gathering tools (observation forms, surveys, interviews, assessment data). Students should summarize and interpret data typically gathered from program evaluations. By the end of the course, students should understand how to communicate findings from program evaluations to a broad range of audiences. The two courses have helped me to have a better understanding on leadership in the education system as well as equipping me with the ability to analyze many kinds of issues. I strongly believe that these courses have significantly improved my thinking in the field of educational administration and will contribute significantly to my future work. All courses in the UNC School of Education are evaluated in a professional way that ensures upholding of the university’s standards. Evaluation time dates are stated in all course outlines. This gives students ample time to do their assignments thoroughly. Enough reading resources for each course are also provided. The school ensures that students carry research in a scientific way. All these factors combined have built competence in me. I admit that not all disciplines I take in this program can be combined well with my previous experience. However, all knowledge I have gained here give me a new view of how international education and its industry work in the global environment. My life is made more meaningful by privilege and advantage. Privileges come from my teacher’s help and encouragement as well as my hardworking. The privileges have given me priceless experience both in Chinese and the U. S. University. The vast experience, research and the course work covered have moved me closer to my professional goal of becoming a qualified school system administrator who understands education industry inside and out. If I become a teacher or administrator, I will try to discover the strength or strongpoint of each student even those that do not get a high score in tests. I want to be the dean who can help more students fulfill their potential and realize their dreams. References Bignold, W., & Gayton, L. (Eds.). (2009). Global issues and comparative education. SAGE. Gregory, M. G., & Granger, D. (2012). Introduction: John Dewey on Philosophy and Childhood. Education & Culture, 28(2), 1-25. Murphy, L., Mufti, E., & Kassem, D. (2009). Education studies: An introduction. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Ott, J. S., Shafritz, J. M., & Jang, Y. S. (2011). Classic Readings in Organization Theory. Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. Read More