Education Commons^™

Exploring Superintendents’ Understandings On Virtual Learning Responses, Kate Maxlow, Karen Sanzo

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

In this study, the authors sought to explore superintendents’ understandings of the various influences on how their districts implemented a 100% virtual learning experience for students for the 2020-2021 academic year. Understanding these influences allowed the authors to develop a framework for leading redesigns of learning systems in long-term crisis situations. In this qualitative study we conducted semi-structured interviews with fifteen superintendents in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Findings showed that districts sought to plan equitable virtual learning experiences for all students based on unintentional influences and the district’s intentional responses. We found that during an educational crisis, learning plans emerged …

Unifying Services To Students With Complex Needs Within A Newly Amalgamated School District, Meghan L. Miskolzie

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) addresses the inequitable services and supports currently available to students with complex needs throughout a newly amalgamated First Nations school district. This problem of practice explores how services for students with complex needs can be unified in a way that provides equity between schools, while being responsive to individual student needs. An overview of historical and current organizational contexts is provided, and personal and organizational leadership positions and lenses are investigated. Guiding questions emerging from this problem of practice are explored, including the capacity and professional learning needs of school-based staff, physical and human resourcing …

Quality Assurance In Competency Training Of Pre-Anesthesia Consultation Skills, Michelle Wong

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

The absence of quality assurance in training clinicians to perform pre-anesthesia consultations at a Canadian university is the Problem of Practice addressed in this Organizational Improvement Plan. This competency requires learners to apply their anesthesia knowledge to take medical histories; perform physical examinations; diagnose anesthetic risks; and generate anesthesia plans. Random chart audits of many learners identify deficiencies and suggest inconsistent training of this competency. This Organizational Improvement Plan analyzes the anesthesia program’s organizational context to be a complex adaptive system; organizational structure to be a hierarchy; and organizational state to be static. Through the paradigms of complexity theory, interpretivism, …

Critical Complexity: A Challenge To Engage For Educators, Elizabeth Johnson

MA TESOL Collection

Education is a means of ensuring the survival of the human race. By passing on knowledge and awareness, humans attempt to craft adaptability of future generations. Adaptability allows humans to respond to unforeseen events that may challenge their survival.

Education is a process that works to achieve change and growth of the individual and the regeneration and transformation of society. The outcomes of interactions in educational systems are uncertain and emergent. Educational systems are open, adaptive, complex, dynamic and non-linear.

In the near past, reducing the complexity of natural and social phenomena has allowed the human race to simplify and …

Private Universities In Kenya Seek Alternative Ways To Manage Change In Teacher Education Curriculum In Compliance With The Commission For University Education Reforms, Catherine Adhiambo Amimo

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This study investigated management of change in teacher education curriculum in Private universities in Kenya. The study employed a concurrent mixed methods design that is based on the use of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. A multi-stage sampling process which included purposive, convenience, cluster, and snowball sampling methods was followed. The sample comprised of 5 chartered private universities which were offering teacher education by the year 2008. The respondents were 5 Deans from the School of education, one from each of the universities;14 Heads of Departments (H.O.D s), 32 Teacher Educators and 150 Teacher Trainees, 2 staffs from Commission for …

#Becoming: Emergent Identity Of College Students In The Digital Age Examined Through Complexivist Epistemologies, Paul William Eaton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the possibilities and limitations of conducting research on college student identity in the digital age. Utilizing philosophical theories from complexity theory, post-qualitative research, and new materialisms, I interrogate, question, disrupt, and challenge current theories and models of college student identity, largely developed from a positivist, modernist, empiricist perspective. Conducting research on college student identity in the twenty-first century may benefit from discarding the old ‘developmental’ language of the twentieth century, replacing this discourse and understanding with a language drawn from complexity theory. In this regard, I believe educators, researchers, and practitioners should begin talking about identity emergence …

The Mediating Effect Of Contextual Characteristics On Collectivist Dynamics And Entity Based Creativity Among Faculty In Higher Education, Anthony Olalere

All Dissertations

This study examines the mediating effect of the entity based creativity on the interaction between complexity theory and creativity among faculty members in higher education organizations. The purpose of study was to investigate how mechanisms for intellectual productivity and creativity foster intellectual and disciplinary interactions among faculty members in higher education. The theoretical framework of complexity theory and KEYS model constructs were employed in order to examine how complexity dynamics, motivation, stimulants and inhibitors foster faculty creativity in higher education.

The Partial Least Square of Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze data using the PLS algorithm, bootstrapping and …

A Dynamic Network Analysis Of Vision In Complex Organizations, Jon Christiansen

All Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to model the role of vision in a complex organization and the roles that agents, tasks, knowledge, roles, resources and beliefs play. For this purpose, an investigation into the current structure of this model is conducted. Additionally, this study sought to develop a better understanding of how agent's individual vision and beliefs about the organizational vision can be influenced over time. This purpose sought to identify the evolution of vision, therefore, required a method that simulates how these entities change over time. Dynamic Network Analysis was utilized to capture an understanding of the existing …