Speech of Advocacy Rhetorical Situation Proposal

The problem I want to address in the speech is that whether colleges put too much stock in standardized test scores. It’s an actual exgience because colleges are currently relying a lot on standardized test scores as a base for their applications. 2. The teenage community is the most directly affected by the exigence. 3. Most people do seem to generally agree that the exigence exists because the people all have been attempting to get into colleges and have gone through the pressure placed on standardized test scores. 4.The values threatened by the existence of the exigence is the actual performance of students in general, not just under pressure and relying on one test score. Role of the Speaker 5. This exigence interests me because from young, I’ve always had to study and prepare for standardized tests. In China, tests represent whether we get into a good middle school, a good high school, and a good college. We can be the best in our class, but without scoring high on the placement tests, we’ll never get into a good school. The same was here, in high school, junior year was all about testing and studying for the ACTs or the SATs.There was too much pressure placed on just the standardized tests. 6. My relationship to the community was not affected because I am a teen and I have gone through all these placement tests. Role of the Audience 7. I believe all my audience has had exposure to exigence, they’ve all experienced the pressures of tests during their high school years because we’re all here today because of in part to standardized test scores. 8. Their relationship to the community is still not affected because we’re all teens who have taken these tests. 9.I believe they’ll agree with my perception because they’ve all been through the pressures of the standardized tests, and whether they scored good or bad, I believe they’ll all agree that standardized test scores are being placed too high in a pplication standards. 10. There is really nothing we can to minimized the exigence except to protest to the government and ask colleges to change the way the application process is. Speech 11. I’ll use a causal order for my speech, because then I can hit the cause and effect of each of my points as I talk about them. 12.The main points in my speech will be to talk about the pressures of the tests on the students, the high placement the colleges place on the tests, and how students who are straight A students may have just done bad on the tests, and how the tests also places pressure on the students own academic work. 13. It’ll be most effective for my audience to just agree with my position because there’s really not much that can be done in terms of actions for the topic. 14. I will ask them to agree that this exigence exists and that we’ve all be affected by it. 15. My goal is not to advocate action but to advocate agreement.

Key Problems and Issues Facing Hong Kong

Contemporary Tourism Issues Topic: TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE TOURISM – KEY PROBLEMS AND ISSUES FACING HONG KONG Introduction Unquestionably, Hong Kong is a blessed land where possesses prosperity and most of the elements of being a world class cosmopolitan which has successfully attracted visitors over years, especially from the mainland by emphasising our world-class shopping, dining and other urban attractions (Lam, H. , 2004).Despite the flourishing scene of the tourism industry, the volatile tourist markets and growing competition from Southeast Asian countries and neighbouring destinations have posed new challenges to Hong Kong’s tourism industry. In order to strengthen Hong Kong’s position as a preferable Asian tourist destination, in recent years, Hong Kong government has started paying more attentions to sustainable tourism due to the rising environmental consciousness worldwide and tourists’ growing interests in the new forms of tourism, namely Eco-tour ism and Cultural Tourism.Projects and campaigns, such as the development of Hong Kong Wetland Park, the launch of â€Å"Cultural Kaleidoscope† and â€Å"Nature Kaleidoscope† experience programmes, and publishing tour guidebooks- â€Å"Discover Hong Kong Nature† and â€Å"Discover Hong Kong by Rail† were introduced to promote green tourism and cultural tourism (GovHK, 2009). These promotion schemes have been launched with the aim to sustain the tourism industry by diversifying the tourism products to cater to the changing and diverse needs of inbound tourist market.Despite the development is on track of continued growth which has aroused tourists’ interests to look at â€Å"the other sides† of Hong Kong, many issues are needed to take into consideration due to the complex nature of sustainable tourism and the large number of stakeholders involved in. There is criticism from public that throughout these schemes, little attention has been paid to develop the tourism as a whole and a truly sustainable one since the schemes are still carried out in a loose manner without a thorough policy. The most significant issues are environmental ustainability and cultural sustainability due to the most recent focus of government on these issues and their importance to the sustainable development. Environmental Sustainability Country parks and nature reserves make up 40 percent of Hong Kong's total land area of some 1,100 square kilometres (Ling, 2007). Regarding the relative ample resources and the initial success of Wetland Parks, Hong Kong government recognized the green potential in Hong Kong tourism and has aggressively proposed numbers of Green initiatives recently, such as the Lantau North Country Park and Marine Park, Geoparks as well as cycle tracks and mountain bike trails.However, regarding these proposed projects, inadequate concerns have been given to the carrying capacity of these natural resources as well as the cost of construction. It is found that the conservational practices are not carried out in a strict manner as a case in Kam Tin Wetland and Hoi Ha Wan marine reserve, which are two well-known ecological attractions in Hong Kong, were reported in suffering wastage problems (Cheung, 2006).Another typical example is a member of Advisory Council on the Environment opposed to the proposal of Lantau North Country Park concerning the development of transport linkage of Tung Chung Road would damage the ecology of the areas. It aroused conservationists’ concern that government’s overemphasis on bringing in the tourist dollars will keep tourist agencies and residents focused on generating large-scale projects but putting little concern on making low-impact sustainable tourism (Crets, 2006).From the projects being carried out or proposed, it shows government’s interests on large scale investment but not much effort and support given to the details, such as the carrying capacity of the ecological resources. It implies government emphasized on the profit making and lacked of a whole-heartedly attitudes towards sustainable tourism. There is no doubt that green tourism has a large potential to become one of the major tourism sectors in Hong Kong with its educational and sustainable meaning as well as the economic benefits resulted from the rising awareness of this market.However, sustainability should not put mainly on the economic side since sustainability of tourist attractions, i. e. , the ecological sites and the heritage, is the core value of sustainable tourism. Although the government claimed that it has been keen on â€Å"promoting green tourism in Northeast New Territories and outlying islands having regard to the principles of nature conservation and sustainable development. (GovHK, 2009), it is doubtful that, regarding its policy on green tourism, whether Hong Kong government has a clear and accurate vision for mass tourism that will incorporate the natural environment. Tourism should be regarded as a tool for ecological and heritage preservation but not the other way round, otherwise there is no true meaning of sustainable tourism. Apparently, there is still much room for improvement regarding the policy as more concern and control should be placed over the environmental sustainability so as not to override the economic sustainability on the environmental sustainability.The success of green tourism is largely dependent on effectiveness of government on planning and management to minimize the impact to environment and the effective distribution of ecological resources. One of the measures suggested to the government is to have strict control on the environmental conservations instead of focusing on constructing more attractions and promoting the markets. The carrying capacity of the green attractions should be carefully studied and controlled by imposing strict regulations on the visitor numbers and their behaviours.Besides, du e to the rising demand, eco-guides’ demand is stretching, thus setting legal standards for eco-guides as well as providing training for nurturing the expertise are in urgent needs to cope with the stretched demand as well as to educate the appropriate behaviours in the ecologist attractions (Chong, 2007). Cultural Sustainability Due to the diversification in Hong Kong’s culture which is positioned as East-meet-West, Hong Kong has been recently facing the demands of constructing an identity reflected in choices about what heritage to conserve and how to present it (Henderson, 2002).With the current trend of globalization and mass movement of people, issues of cultural identity and cultural preservation continue to be explored. Recently, Hong Kong has been keen on developing attractions to enhance Hong Kong’s cultural image, one of the fine examples is the proposed cultural venues, the West Kowloon Cultural District. Besides building new cultural venues, preservin g and promoting Hong Kong’s tangible and intangible heritage are accounted as other measures to showcase Hong Kong’s mixed culture.Examples like preservation and development of the former Marine Police Headquarters in Tsim Sha Tsui into a tourism facility by the private sector, â€Å"1881 Heritage†, and HKTB’s promotion of traditional Chinese customs and festivals such as the Tin Hau Festival parade in Yuen Long and Cha Kwo Ling, Tam Kung Festival in Shaukeiwan, the Cheung Chau Bun Festival and the Birthday of Lord Buddha celebrations at Po Lin Monastery. Despite these efforts, several problems are found regarding Hong Kong’s culture and heritage sustainability policy.It is found that Hong Kong has been relatively slow in developing its potential heritage sites into tourist attractions, as seen in the controversy over the fate of Tiger Balm Garden and the Central Police Station. According to Chu and Uebegang (2002), the sluggish and passive respons e of government reflects the lack of political will due to a lack of understanding of the principles of heritage and its potential. The Government believes heritage conservation should be driven by tourism and economics and not treated in the same way as other social and education services.Even with the setting up of Heritage Tourism Task Force which is established in 1998, there have been very few recommendations proposed by the task force. Some critics have blamed on its lack of leadership and lack of influence in the government bureaucracy (Chu and Uebegang, 2002). Other problems implied in the policy of government are lack of a broad-based, long-term conservation policy, lack of a clear priorities and inadequate co-ordination of government departments involved in present heritage conservation practice.Besides, in most cultural heritage development, public involvement in decision-making is absent. Regarding these problem, it is essential for government to change its attitude and strike for a more holistic vision and policy towards the cultural heritage conservation. It is due to the challenge faced by Hong Kong that it has long promoted its culture as an exciting fusion of East-meet-West and traditional-meet-contemporary, which may cause it falling in a danger of overemphasizing on international style attractions and a loss of actual distinctiveness.Development may follow a common path to create uniform of tourism features which convey similar image to the tourists. Therefore, the cultural and heritage conservations are essential in the tourism development as it helps to maintain a unique sense of place and difference as intrinsic merit to secure its competitive advantages and reposition the image besides an international metropolitan with the colonial history. Apart from these problems of fragmented policy and vision, the management issue of the cultural heritage has been another concern by the conservationist and researchers.Since the cultural and heritag e tourism requires a cautious approach with sensitivity, research, and community involvement due to its core value is to convey the value to and engage present generations without betraying the spirit of the previous generations’ experiences. It is important and beneficial to involve the participation of those people and groups who are most closely related to the significance of the heritage area. Without this, it is difficult to achieve substantive conservation. In Hong Kong, there is lack of cooperation with and involvement of the locals or the significant cultural group.It is, therefore, suggested to involve the local community at the planning and operation level which can enhance the sustainability of the projects as well as prevent the problem of being too commercialized which affecting the authenticity and integrity of the heritage. Referring to the need of involvement of local community, certain level of empowerment is essential which can be regarded as community based tourism. It broadly described as â€Å"responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people. It requires tourism activities to be primarily developed and operated by members of the local community and that revenues from tourism remain within the local community. Respect for local culture, heritage and traditions is imperative. CBT teaches the visitor to behave responsibly and respectfully towards nature and native culture, and offers activities that give the visitor an understanding and appreciation of the area without degrading it. Most importantly of all, it can reserve the sustainable resources and reduce the impacts to the community daily life at the minimum level.Conclusion Tourism is most ideally suited to adopt sustainability as a guiding philosophy in sustainable developmemnt (McKercher, 2003). However, mismanaging sustainable tourism will turn it into a curse as it will damage the ecological and heritage attraction s in more direct ways. According to McKercher (2003), sustainable tourism is built around four pillars of tourism, namely economic sustainability, ecological sustainability, cultural sustainability and local sustainability, all these four elements must be addressed if we are to achieve sustainable tourism.It is found that recently Hong Kong government is striking for sustainable tourism, however, there is a lack of broad view and holistic policy to support the efforts. Unregulated short-term initiatives which serve the narrow interests of powerful forces in the industry may jeopardize the sustainability and longer-term tourism potential of many communities upon which majority interests are based (Brohman, 1996). It is therefore important for government to be aware of the future planning must be holistic, strategic and long-term.Laws, procedures and systems for planning, preservation, development and management should be adjusted or created to ensure that the development of the proje ct is undertaken in ways that are consistent with the principles of sustainability. Besides, all these should be applied to a culture of caring for the environment, therefore the concepts of preservation and sustainable development should be fostered and encouraged within the government and the community so as to ensure the true and holistic meaning of sustainable tourism.

Case Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 46

Case Study - Essay Example The academic advisors also aim to ensure that all the students get an advising experience that is well rounded to navigate challenges and opportunities to fulfill career related and educational goals. They also work with students to transform their unique skills and, thus, create transformational change for their families and themselves (Kelly, 2003). Finally, the goals set by the academic advisers are to help their students to successfully navigate college, whatever their background, and to provide them with the tools they need to thrive in the university. However, there are several obstacles in attempting to improve leadership. One has to do with giving motivation to those one is leading, especially because the students will not go far if they do not feel motivated to achieve the set goals (Gilbert, 2012). Those who lack focus or interest in their goals will undermine the leader’s authority and efforts, although this could be fixed by clearly communicating the mission. Leaders also, sometimes, find it difficult to cultivate an experience of leadership. In order to be effective, a leader must ensure that he/she is capable of effective leadership. Skills that are required to execute particular goals cannot be learned in a classroom setting and, as such, they require some experience so as to execute them. For this reason, lack of experience is an obstacle to improvement of leadership capabilities. Lack of open communication is also an obstacle to improvement of leadership. This could involve finding a way for them to be approacha ble sans losing their authority. For a leader to improve he/she has to depend on open communication and this proves to be an obstacle sometimes. Finally, it is difficult to encourage those that one is leading to be proactive and to take risks with innovations (Gilbert, 2012). According to Matthew L.

Future Plans while Still at Apple Inc Research Paper

Future Plans while Still at Apple Inc - Research Paper Example I feel the foundation of all education is the learning process itself or what actually becomes a learning process of â€Å"de-hypnotizing ourselves back into a more conscious state†. I feel a commitment in myself to continuously remove any resistance I might have or acquire to new learning and maintain an open heart and open mind to all life. My professional area of focus arises from the surrounding environment and I believe working with Apple Inc. organization will be the fulfillment of my dream I have heard since I was young. My interest in research centers based on Apple Inc. is what I term the science of coherency. Coherency according to Webster means: To become united: in principles/relationships/interest (i.e. intention and higher Purpose), To be logically and aesthetically consistent and Systematic connection. I am interested in developing and testing both innovative technologies and â€Å"wake-up in the moment† tools for stimulating internal coherency. It is my experience that technology can serve as training wheels for stimulating and measuring ourselves back into wholeness. The focus of this endeavor is on awareness and how tools can be developed within each of us to wake-up from our hypnotized separation and connect with the very source of our awareness and essential self. Apple Inc, formerly known as Apple Computer, Inc is one of the American multinational corporation positioned in California. The company is associated with the development and sells of electronics devices, computer software, as well as personal computers. These electronic devices include iPod, iPhone Smartphones and iPad tablet computers. The company is the world’s second-largest information technology company by revenue after Samsung Electronics. It is also the third largest company in the world phone makers. The company has over 408 retail stores in fourteen countries all over the world. It is one of the largest public corporation in the world by market capitalization valued at $ 415  billion.  

Socket programming Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Socket programming - Research Paper Example However, sockets can also be used to facilitate communication on one computer being either as synchronous (blocking) or an asynchronous (non-blocking) socket (Luo etal., 2009). The difference between the two is that the blocking socket ensures socket operation to be completed before the program resumes the next execution. On the other hand, non-blocking socket usually allow the application to be responsive to other events The development of socket programming has achieved notable success over the years. It all started with the development of a free version of UNIX operating system in the year 1978, the BSD UNIX by Bill Joy. The second free version of BSD was released some months later which become the internet backbone due to its open source concept. On this front, it was notable in facilitating the development of TCP/IP with UNIX as the research platform (Parziale etal., 2009). This breakthrough into spearheading internet research using UNIX operating system made Bill Joy to be regarded as the â€Å"Edison of the Internet†. The socket interface development was initially conducted on BSD UNIX after which it was later incorporated into other operating system to simplify porting applications (Mansfield & Antonakos, 2010). Stream socket (SOCK_STREAM) – mainly involved in connection-oriented data transmission where the data is usually considered as a stream of bytes. Uses the bind (), listen (), accept (), and connect function to establish connectivity and develops flow control to ensure there is no data overruns. To effect communication successfully, a stream socket requires that the two parties involved in the communication process to establish the connection first before initiating the dialog process. The client program requests for connection after which the server program determines the suitable socket connection. The data being transmitted is bound to arrive following its sending order without any duplication or errors.

See the attachments>> Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Youth Unemployment as a Social Economic Challenge - Essay Example This discussion highlights that the number of unemployed individuals increased to 4.5 million in March from 4.41 million in the previous month. A year earlier, 2013 the figure was 4.02 million. While nominal wages rose 6.1 percent year-on-year to an average RUB 33205 (8.1 percent in February), real pay fell 9.3 percent after dropping by 7.4 percent in the previous month. Real disposable income shrank 1.8 percent (-1.6 percent in February). As the discussion outlines a number of factors are responsible for increasing the situation of unemployment in Russia. The first reason is the shortage of raw materials such as the supply of coal, timber or oil fails, and the factories have to stand idle, waiting until the necessary fuel arrives. The shortage of this materials delayed factories to function. The second reason is financial difficulties where there are a rigid economy campaigns. Many factories have had large deficits. The cost at which these factories operate is very high. This forced the directors to apply methods that will force them to economize. The third reason is food shortage where every factory is forced to feed their employees thus forces the factory to employ workers that they can feed. The fourth reason is the increase in the use of machines replacing the use of manual labor forcing people to lose their jobs. The unemployment factor has led to political issues where there is loss trust in the administration a nd the government. These factors may lead to political instability, increase employment gaps as many individuals continue to be jobless after finishing school. In addition, the standard of living where the completion of jobs and the negotiation power of individuals also decrease and their living standards and salaries reduce thus affecting the overall economy of the country.

Which contexts and developments help to explain European expansion (wk Essay

Which contexts and developments help to explain European expansion (wk 16) and New World conquest (wk 13) - Essay Example First of all, the course for the New World explorations and the European expansion was dented by the unhealthy interactions and relationship that existed between the indigenous people and the explorers. It is through these interactions that pestilence and violence occurred resulting in a significant decline in the population (Greenblatt 11). The religious conflicts witnessed between the Christians and Muslims resulted in crusades that would go a long way in shaping the conquest. As early as the 11th century, the Catholic Church felt it was its duty to redeem the Spaniards and the Holy Land from people it regarded as religious infidels. It is these fervent crusades that opened the way for European inhabitants to take root in North and South America. ` The religious expeditions into the Middle East exposed the Europeans to the valuable trade goods which came from Asia. These goods namely silks, sugar, spices and other products that were synonymous with India and China were highly regarded in the European households. However, the transportation of such was a rather tiring process that required the services of Muslim middlemen and sometimes the payments of tributes. To solve this, the Portuguese sailors had to look for an alternative route through the coastline of Africa. This way, colonization, took place and slaves were sold to Europe. Another contributing factor to this conquest haze was the discovery of gold by the Spaniards. The Spaniards quickly realized that magnanimous profits would not be drawn from the silk and spices but the gold and silver in the â€Å"new world." This mania about the mineral ores was generated in part by Columbus’ preliminary to Isabella and Ferdinand. All in all, the conquest and expansion was favored or discouraged by the respective natives (Greenblatt 12). While some were subservient, timid, kind and welcoming, others were the direct

The potential benefits for supply chain management by utilizing AHP Dissertation

The potential benefits for supply chain management by utilizing AHP for supplier selection - Dissertation Example 1993). Under such circumstances, the purchasing department plays an important role in cost reduction, of which supplier selection is an important part. To illustrate, an issue has been brought up in the case study. Leading companies need to maintain their position in market; however, cost of production constitutes the problem of company expanding or technology innovation. Supplier selection is a multi-criteria problem which includes both quantitative and qualitative factors. (Ghodsypour, S. H.,1996). The companies that still continue with the traditional method of supplier selection may lose competitiveness. Acknowledgement First and foremost, I would like to show my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Louis Knight, a respectable, responsible and resourceful scholar, who has provided me with valuable guidance in every stage of the writing of this thesis. Without her enlightening instruction, impressive kindness and patience, I could not have completed my thesis. I shall extend my thanks to Felix, Li for all his kindness and help. I would also like to thank all my teachers who have helped me to develop the fundamental and essential academic competence. My sincere appreciation also goes to Mary, Liu, for doing the English typographic and corrections. Dr. Louis Knight, Aston University, Engineering and Applied Science. L.KNIGHT2@aston.ac.uk Felix Li, University of Warwick, Statistics department. felixli@hotmail.ac.uk Mary Liu, Olympia Education Service LTD. lyqlyq1688@hotmail.com Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgement 4 Table of Figures 7 Photo credit: 7 List of Tables 8 Chapter 1: Introduction 9 1.1 Introduction 9 1.2 Background 3 Chapter 2:Literature review 4 2.1 Supplier selection in SCM 4 2.1.1 Benefits of supply chain management 4 2.1.2 Responsibilities of the purchasing department 5 2.1.3 Supplier selection: Criteria affect choosing suppliers in supply chain management 8 2.1.4 Supplier performance of Tsingtao Company 10 2.2 Analytical Hierarchal Process 11 2.2.1 Analytic Hierarchy Process - Concept 11 2.2.2 AHP in supplier selection 12 Chapter 3:Methodology 13 3.1 Research objective 13 3.2 Research design 13 3.3 Data collection 13 3.4 Research method 17 3.4.1 Case study (why & how) 17 3.4.2 Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) 19 Chapter 4:Findings 21 4.1Characteristics of purchasing supply chain in beer industry 21 4.2 Supplier selection using AHP analysis 27 4.2.1 Building the supplier evaluation criteria system 27 4.2.2 Building judgment matrix 27 4.2.3 Defining first-level criteria weights 28 1.Calculating maximum eigenvalue of the judging matrix 29 2.B is the judgment matrix B= (b) nn 29 3.Calculate consistency test 29 4.From the table of average and random consistency criteria, it can find the necessary average and random consistency criteria RI. 29 Chapter 5:Main Findings and discussion 33 5.1 Findings 33 5.2 Discussion 35 5.2.1 35 5.2.2 Sensitivity analysis 35 Chapter 6:Conclusion 36 36 Reference 37 Appendixes 42 Table of Figures Figure 1: Current method of supplier selection 15 Figure 2: Agenda of having suppliers 16 Figure 3: Definition of terms 16 Figure 4: Criteria for supplier elevation 27 Photo credit: Cover page: http://thenextwavefutures.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/shipping_containers.jpg List of Tables Table 1: Supplier evaluation

Management Accounting and Traditional System Appraisal Essay

Management Accounting and Traditional System Appraisal - Essay Example In reality, different drivers of factory overheads such as machine setups, special storage, unique inspections and special handling drive the cost. Thus, it is difficult to allocate cost to the diverse activities undertaken in meeting the diverse customer demands using a single activity of machine hours consumed. Similarly, containing all the costs incurred in undertaking the diverse activities in a single cost to allocate the costs by dividing with machine hours used in the production process is erroneous under the traditional system applied by the firm (Gediehn, 2010). The approach gives an average rate to be employed in the different products despite of the complexity and number of activities performed. This is a misleading approach to allocating the costs since the diverse customer specifications do not correlate (Gediehn, 2010). The use of a general average rate in allocating the overhead costs under the traditional management system misleads the management in determining the cost of the product per customer demand. The response that is derived from the results given under the traditional system has a high potential of being wrong due to the performance measures it generates (Bragg, 2013). Furthermore, the traditional system used by the firm has the potential of failing to motivate enviable behaviors. This is because it has the tendency of strengthening vertical controls and bureaucracy (Macintosh & Quattrone, 2009). The requirement for the staff to fill the time they spend in running the machine is a bureaucratic act that has the potential of attempting the staff members to inflate the hours to earn more salary. Thus, employees of the organization will not be motivated to act in the interest of the company. Similarly, the traditional system under use has the potential of causing the management to be disconnected from the strategic plan of the firm. This is because the managers will be obsessed in  achieving the correct numbers that can cause the strategic purpose of the budgeting process to be missed.

The eye scanned the whole area of California Essay

The eye scanned the whole area of California - Essay Example Taking a closer look, the observer began to notice something. It was odd yet very real. Both places if examined at a certain perspective become uncannily similar. To start with, both have labels thrown at them. The enclave for the upper class people is called gated community while the ordinary is called non-gated community. At the start both communities were already type-casted into something that may or may not be true. There is already a sense of expectation for both communities to perform or behave in a certain way. And the outcomes are weighed using only pure presumptions. The first thing that the observer noticed was that residents in both places seldom interacted with each other. Two neighbors in the gated community went out to pick up the newspapers and did not bother to say good morning or hello. Compare that to two neighbors this time in a non-gated community who also came out to do their assigned task of picking up the morning paper, and guess what happened Although the distance between the two houses in this lower middle class neighborhood are much closer to each other, both men were too absorbed in what they are doing that they di d not bother to look up. Everybody is doing their own thing; it does not matter if the guys are wearing Rolexes or cheap Japanese watches, the interaction between humans are at a very intensity. Few words are spoken, people are quiet, except for the Moms who from a distance are the ones whose mouths are always in use. Looking down on the physical surroundings, the observer noticed that in both locations dirt are piling up in the usual places. The rooftops for those much older houses begin to accumulate rotting leaves and the dust coming from the nearby dessert had also been collected in the gutters. The cat in the front lawn of the upper-class neighborhood is as bored as his whiskered cousin down the road five miles away. Also, the harried mom in the rich enclaves looks as distraught as the mother in a typical suburb who could not make her child eat breakfast while frantically trying to prepare her for school. For time is ticking in both places and it moves at the same speed. The rich and poor all have the same twenty four hours, everyone now is gearing up for the morning rush and nobody can make time stand still. In the afternoon both communities seemed no man's land as many of the folks had already left for work. The observer recorded that the toddlers left behind by their parents are being take n cared of by people not related to them judging by their facial features and other characteristics. It (observer) would later take note that money is given to them at the end of the day when Mom and Dad comes back from the office. And finally with regards to the baby sitter - which both working parents from both communities badly needed - when these hired help enter each respective house, immediately they went for the remote and watch TV. This phenomenon is again the same in both communities. As dusk begins to fall, the same golden sun can be seen dipping closer to the western side of both communities. And of course the moon is in its usual place and the stars too, the night sky can be enjoyed irregardless of the address. The moths are having a good time in both communities and they were attracted to the burning lamp-posts and did not care if the one is more expensive than the other. At night

Tetraamminecopper(II) sulphate hydrate Write-up Essay Example for Free

Tetraamminecopper(II) sulphate hydrate Write-up Essay Purpose The purpose of this experiment is to form tetraamminecopper(II) sulphate hydrate and determine the yield. Materials CuSo4à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½5H2O NH3 (concentrated) Ethanol 50 cm3 measuring cylinder 250 cm3 beaker Spatula Equipment for vacuum filtration Procedure Weigh out approximately 5.0g of CuSo4à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½5H2O Dissolve it in 30 cm3 water in the beaker Add 10 cm3 concentrated ammonia (NH3) and stir the solution Add 40 cm3 ethanol and stir carefully for a couple of minutes. Filter the solution through equipment for vacuum filtration. Transfer the product to a clean weighing boat and leave to dry. Procedure and observations in class First 5.01g of CuSo4à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½5H2O was weighed out. After it was dissolved in 30 cm3 water, in the beaker, the solution got the colour blue. Next was 10 cm3 concentrated ammonia (NH3), which was added into the solution and the colour dark blue was observed. Then 40 cm3 ethanol was added and the solution got the colour bright blue. Then the solution was filtered through a Buchner flask and the final product was weighed in a plastic weighing boat. The total mass was 5.98g, from which the weight of the boat, 1.16g, has to be subtracted. So the mass of the final product was 5.98 1.16 = 4.82g. Data processing 1. Calculate the number of moles CuSo4à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½5H2O used. To find out the number of moles the formula n = m / Mr has to be used. Mr = 64 + 32 + (16 x 4) + (5 x 16) = 250 m = 5.01 n = 5.01 / 250 = 0.02004 à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ 0.0200 moles (3 s.f.) 2. Concentrated ammonia contains 25% NH3 by mass. The density of concentrated ammonia is 0.91g/cm3 . Calculate the number of moles of NH3 . Density of con. ammonia = 0.91g/cm3 and in the procedure there was used 10 cm3, so therefore mass of ammonia used: 0.91 x 10 = 9.1g Since only 25% of ammonia is NH3 , mass of NH3 : 9.1 x 0.25 = 2.275g From here the amount of moles can be calculated by the formula n = m / Mr. Mr = 14 + (1 x 3) = 17 m = 2.275g n = 2.275 / 17 = 0.134 moles (3 s.f.) 3. Which of the reactants is in excess? Which is the limiting reagent? CuSo4à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½5H2O NH3 Number of moles (n) 0.02 0.134 Divide by smallest ratio 0.02 / 0.02 = 1 0.134 / 0.02 = 6.7 Divide by stoichiometric co-efficient from equation (Equation below this table) 1 / 1 = 1 6.7 / 4 = 1.675 Reactant in excess or limiting reagent Limiting reagent Reactant in excess (1)CuSO4 . 5H2O + 4NH3 Cu(NH3)4SO4 . H2O + 4H2O 4. Calculate the theoretical yield of Cu(NH3)4SO4 . H2O From the equation above it can be seen that the ratio between CuSO4 . 5H2O and Cu(NH3)4SO4 . H2O is 1 : 1. Therefore 0.02 moles of CuSO4 . 5H2O will give 0.02 moles of Cu(NH3)4SO4 . H2O. By using the formula m = Mr x n the theoretical yield can be calculated: n = 0.02 Mr = 246 m = 0.02 x 246 = 4.92 g Calculate the yield in percentage of the theoretical and comment on any difference. The yield in percentage can be calculated by the formula: actual mass / expected mass. 4.82 / 4.92 à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ 97.9% (3 s.f) Because the difference is so small (2.1%) the experiment can be considered successful. The difference could have been caused by different things like: a small measurement mistake, a little bit was spilt or not transferred when the solution was held in the Buchner flask.

Strategic Management Accounting and applying it

Strategic Management Accounting and applying it With the rapid development of the global economy, traditional management accounting has been difficult to meet the business strategic management and requirements. Strategic Management Accounting(SMA) for the modern enterprise is of great significance. However, it is a new techniques and approaches. Although strategic management accounting has been developed over 20 years, the SMA is still debatable. In addition, a number of scholars have experienced to define what SMA is, however, the opinions of the scholars is still not yet able to be generalized. Yet, strategic management accounting is still at the exploratory stage. Management accounting plays a crucial role in the business world. It provides important advice in order to make decision for the firms in the western society. The costs of offering excellent products strategically need to be fully integrated into the enterprise cost system and being reported by these systems. Management accounting helps monitoring the performance of the management. Therefore, the customers can then be securely kept in the same market. This could also be helpful on understanding the market in a better way. Strategic management market aims to obtain the information of the rivals in the same market; this provides support to their business when making decision since the owner could adjust their budget plan according the reports of the strategic management market. Strategic management accounting is recently developed in management accounting. It involved in planning, control and requires financial information. In the strategic management planning and control systems, R.N.Anthony believes that there are two different oriented processes which are externally and internally. Externally oriented process is a financial accounting. Moreover, an internally oriented process is including strategic planning, management control and operational control. During the strategic planning process, it is the role of formulating strategy and it emphasis on planning. Planning defines aims, objectives and targets of organizations and also does formulation, evaluation and selection of policies, strategies, tactics and actions to achieve them. The orientation is planning outside the organization which is relating to the organizations environment. Secondly, after strategic planning, management control would be followed. The main function of this process is implementing strategy which can be a part of the planning. In the final stage, operational control is mainly responsible for controlling however also performing the tasks as well as planning. In this process it ensure that resources and obtained and used effectively and efficiently to achieve organizational goals and procedures adhered to or appropriate remedial action taken. It normally occurs within the organization. Strategy orientated accounting complements the traditional concerns of the West accounting. It focuses on the additional costs in order to maintain competitive advantages of enterprises of actual and potential rivals. It focuses on the cost impact enterprise products and marketing strategies and it can be seen as an essence for success in todays meeting the challenges of an increasingly global market. Generally speaking, such re-orientation is another license management accounting focused on the value of consumer generated relative to its competitors. It also helps monitoring the companys performance in the market variables using a series of strategic decisions over the horizon which would be long enough to achieve the strategic plan. These concepts form the core of the new concept of SMA. In addition, there are 12 strategic management accounting practices. They are competitive position monitoring, strategic pricing, competitor performance appraisal, competitor cost assessment, strat egic costing, value-chain costing, brand value monitoring brand value budgeting, attribute costing, quality costing, life-cycle costing and target costing. However, the main methods in SMA which are strategic costing, target costing and product life-cycle. Although there are a lot of practices, there is still of a lower usage and recognized by a couple of organizations. In 1981, Ken Simmonds has firstly proposed the strategic management accounting, he developed the SMA definition. After his speech, SMA has been concerned day by day. In the speech, he mentioned to collect management accounting information about a business and the competitors for the uses in developing and monitoring the business strategy. He argues that management accounting should be more outward looking and should help the emphasis to place upon relative levels and trends in real costs and prices, cash flow, market share and stewardship of the resources available to the business. It can be developed and controlled the enterprise strategic. Ken Simmonds suggested that profits are not from internal efficiencies but from the companys competitive position in its market. He raised several ideas for the application of SMA in the business. He stressed the importance of the learning curve with respect to achieve strategic advantage by forecasting cost reductions and thus selling price reductions of competitors. He also drew attention to the importance of early experience to the new product as a meaning to give a unique advantage over competitors. Major competitor should be able to reduce the sales price of the products which should further increase its production and enhance its market share; which eventually force some competitors to leave the industry. Secondly, Simmonds shows that the cost-volume-profit relationship of competitors could predict the price response and management accounting functions to help assessing the cost structure of each major competitor and relating this to their prices. In addition to handling costs and prices, Simmonds concentrated on volume and market share by monitoring the movement of the market share as the main products, companies can see if it is acquired or lost status and competitors will show different strength in the market share. Including detailed information on the market, management accounting report will help to enable more strategic management accounting-related. Simmonds suggested that the market share of the statements may be included in managed accounts. He believes that SMA will develop in management accounting in the future. One of the main advocates of Strategic Management Accounting is M.E. Porter(1985). His argument on strategic management is considered as the important information. Porter mentions a two pronged approach. First, he assessed various aspects of the industrys long-term profitability. He believes the five competitive forces will contribute to strategic balance. This is a threat to new entrants, substitute products or services enter the market, competition among existing institutions within the industry, bargaining power of suppliers and consumers. These five forces fully reflect the competitiveness of many enterprises in an increasingly competitive. However, Porter has also raised the question of the relative position of the enterprise in the industry. This issue is important because it affects the ability of enterprises to create profits above or below the industry average. Returns may be higher than average to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. This is achieved by three basic generic strategies which are cost leadership, differentiation and focus. Cost leadership means that companies intended to serve as the lowest cost of production in the industries. This is achieved by economies of scale; capital of the experience curve effect, tight cost control and cost minimization. Also, the company aims to provide a number of different levels of product and service value to customers. It can generate a premium price. This is the differentiation part. Focus is another part of the bargaining power which concerns about the cost and differentiation focus. Porter mentioned that the value chain is needed to determine the future of the practice of strategic management accounting. Value is the customer willing to pay which is a function of the image products. In the value chain, there are nine elements. Some of these cost drivers may be controllable. The nine elements of the value chain can also be separated as either support activities or main activities. For the support activities, they are firm infrastructure, human resources, technology development and procurement. And the main activities are inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales and services. For example, Internal value chain analysis is the objectives of promoting enterprises to eliminate useless operations and reduce waste. The factory analyses the operating level step by step. The main reason is to focus on the market and customer. The operations and the activities of the business-internal price chain analysis enable the cost management of enterprises to maintain the basic operating level, and explore each layer of worth operations, eliminating useless operations. The value of Competitors chain analysis can identify the merits and shortcomings in the company. The conclusion of the market and competitors analysis that compared to the competitors on the market, production quality and diversification may not have too much effect. If the strategic can improve the quality or diversification in product to enhance competitiveness, it would be hard to achieve. On the other hand, if firm blindly relying on low prices to gain market share, it will lead to greater losses. In the analysis, the impact of the cost drivers on each of the elements must be assessed by efforts. Also, there must be a satisfactory margin which produced by the cost of the nine elements. Once this is completed, manager must try to make analysis of their own competitors in the same way. Strategic advantage will be able to establish if the elements of the total cost is less than competitors. It is necessary to adopt a more positive attitude to assess if the profit margins higher than those of competition. If not, it is needed to develop strategies to achieve the low cost advantage by controlling the cost drivers. The cost savings would lead to a reduction on costs or improve productivity. Marketing, sales and service costs may be reduced more efficiently, if the reduction in external fault. An obvious example provides a good customer support services to the public. If a Volkswagen breaks down occurs, while the car is in a warranty period, the rescue vehicles comes out and fix it. If it cannot be fixed, and then provide replacement. This is would be good way handle but the cost would be expensive (C.DRURY, 2008). Shank based on Porter (1985) proposed three generic strategies in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Shank also mentions the needs for management accounting to support the enterprises competitive strategy and clarify two different types of competitive strategy the first one is cost leadership and product differentiation. The second one is demand different cost analysis perspective. For example, standard product cost is likely to be a very important tool for management control in the company that pursuing a cost leadership strategy in a mature commodity business. On the contrary, standard product cost is probably not important after the differentiation strategy of enterprises. With the market-driven, there is rapidly changing and fast-growing business. A companys pursuit of product differentiation strategy may require more information than on the cost of the leading about new product innovation, design cycles, research and development expenditures and marketing cost analysis. The difference between the cost leadership and product differentiation which depend on the primary strategic thrust of the firm. Recently, Professor Bromwich(1994) further discusses strategic management accounting and definition of strategic management accounting such as the provision analysis of financial information on the firms product markets, competitors costs, cost structures, the monitoring of the enterprises strategies and those of its competitors in these markets over a number of periods. Bromwich found that SMA is a development of management accounting. This new techniques needed to be further discussed by the accountants in the future. Moreover, Bromwich mentioned that the role of accounting is going to extend in two directions when adding the strategic perspective to traditional management accounting. First, in strategic cost analysis, costs need to integrated into it and thus align costs with strategy. Secondly, in a fairly general way, the cost structure in competitors businesses and to record the changes over time. To achieve this, Bromwich also highlights this distinction identifying two domina nt approaches to SMA. One seeks to cost the product attributes offered by a companys goods. It is to attract customers. The other approach is to cost the functions in the value chain which provide value to the customer. (Bromwich and Bhimani ,1994) In the cost leadership strategy development trends, as well as obsolete the traditional cost accounting. SMA focus is based on the benefits and it is doubtful for the standard costing performance measurement; suspected the use of flexible manufacturing costs, budget control, a worship of the budget; strict adherence to the traditional product cost pricing decisions; one to consider the cost of competitors; the absence of formal consideration of the marketing costs. Roslender (1995) determine the target cost as a domain within strategic management accounting. This is the reason why focus on the external part and this is a market-oriented approach for product pricing and cost management. In addition, it involves the proliferation of management accounting throughout the organization and active participation of staff in a broad range of management functions. Their goal is to achieve the target cost, including the identification, evaluation and use of cost functional analysis of the product attributes and research opportunities to reduce costs throughout the value chain. Moreover, a recent contribution to the role of SMA, emphasizing the management accounting in the development and support the overall competitive strategy of an organization is the Balanced Scorecard. The purpose of the Balanced Scorecard is to encourage behavior consistent with organizational strategy. It includes a comprehensive framework for performance measurement to clarify, com munication and management strategy. (Kaplan and Norton, 1992). He sees SMA as an approach that to account for strategic positioning by the trials to integrate the views from the previous marketing texts into management accounting. Robin Roslender and Susan J.Hart mentions that SMA is intimately associated with both management accounting and marketing management because SMA is on a strategic level who attends to change in the environment outside the enterprise but not limited to this one part of the enterprise, SMA explore the whole industry value chain in the business information and improve the enterprises economic environment. It emphasis that enterprise development and environmental change are consistent, in order to achieve the optimal effectiveness of industry, SMA requires marketing management to collect the information of competitors. The management accountants collect, compare, and analyze the information. The analysis of SMA is depending on the information from marketing management. It is controversial that if it is necessary for the management accountants to handle to the marketing information or the marketing management can obtain the information with their own tool. Innes (1998) believes that strategic management accounting for the provision of information to support strategic decision-making in enterprise. Strategic decision-making usually involves in a long-term period, there is a significant impact on the organization, even though they may have an internal element, and they also have external factors. This definition was introduced that provide information in order to support an organizations principal long-term decisions, such as the use of activity-based costing information, provide the relevant information product structure, the introduction and abandonment decisions are the domain of SMA. This view is support by Cooper and Kaplan (1988) who state that strategic accounting techniques are designed to support the entire organizations competitive strategy. Generally speaking, the power of using information technology is to develop more sophisticated product and service costs. Despite strategic management accounting has received, there is still no comprehensive conceptual framework of what strategic management accounting (Tomkins and Carr, 1996). For example, Coad(1996) states that SMA is an emerging field whose boundaries are loose and there is still no unified view of what it is or how it might develop. The existing literature in the field is both disparate and disjointed (Coad, 1996:332). There is an exception such the survey which conducted by Guilding et al. (2000). The survey sample included 312 large companies. Guilding et al. found that recognition of what is difficult to determine the composition of the strategic management of generally accepted accounting practice. According to the review of the literature, they identified 12 strategic management accounting practices including value-chain costing, strategic costing, target cost, life-cycle costing, attribute costing etc. These are being used to determine the practice, it is a must demonstrate one or more of the following characteristics: the environment and market position focus on competitors; and long-term, forward-looking direction. At the end of the experiment, Guilding et al concluded that 12 strategic management accounting practices are of relatively low usage, there are two factors that should not dismiss their potential. First of all, all the evaluation of SMA practices may be significantly higher than expected utilization of the advantages of scoring points. Secondly, there are still many companies have abandoned the usages of the SMA. These findings showed that there is a difference between the neediness and the actual reports conducted. It finds that there the practicing accountants do not familiar with the usage of the SMA. This gives supports to the findings of Tomkins and Carrs (1996) while they believed that the SMA is ill-defined. In addition, it is still lacking of the strategic management accounting consensus. (Lord, 1996) stated that a number of strands have been used to describe the strategic management accounting. It magnifies the internal focus of traditional management accounting and the external information to competitors. The linkage between the strategic position which decided by the companies and the anticipated emphasis on management accounting and lastly obtaining competitive advantage by interpreting methods to reduce costs or to boost the varieties of the companies goods by exploiting the relationship between the value chains and generalizing the cost drivers. In conclusion Strategic management accounting is recently developed in management accounting. It involved in planning, control and requires financial information. Nevertheless, SMA have not formed a unified knowledge. While some firms may have heard SMA. They may lack for a clear understanding in SMA. Although SMA has lots of different views from various authors. For example, Simmonds is the earliest to introduce the strategic management accounting. He mentions to collect information on business competitors. Than Bormwich has further information SMA is not only to collect information . It still need to Research and competitors on their own competitive advantage and value creation process and research a long-term decision-making cycle in the enterprise perspective, for the marketing of these products and services give enterprises the total revenue. In addition, Porter identified 3 generic strategies in SMA to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. .However ,Innes (1998) believe that strategic management accounting for the provision of information to support strategic decision-making and Cooper and Kaplan (1988) views that Strategic Accounting technology is designed to support the entire organizations competitive strategy to develop more sophisticated products and services costs . On the other hand,lord (1996) identified SMA not only analysis external competitor information but also extend the main point of traditional management accounting. They are all authors who hold different evidence to support their own mind in SMA, so SMA is totally confide, it is remains a mystery .,In my opinion, the main reason of SMA occurs because Economic is developing very fast and SMA is reclamation and atone for traditional management accounting in a new environment. However,SMA has many of obstacles in developing process such as enterprise keep continue to apply the SMA in the practical application and do adjustment and innovation , thereby it can promote the development of SMA application to make it update. So I believe that Although SMA lack of consistent theory at this moment , it will be a big management accounting develop in the future. Bibliographies: Bromwich, M. Accounting information for strategic excellence Bromwich, M.,1990 The case for strategic management accounting : the role of accounting information for strategy in competitive markets.Accounting Organization and Society, Vol 15, No  ½ , pp.27-46 Cadez, S.,2008 An exploratory investigation of an integrated contingency model of strategic management accounting ,Accounting, Organizations and Society,33,pp.836-863 Drury,C. 2008, Management Costing Accounting, 7th ed. , London: South-Western. Horngren,C. T. ,1999,Management and cost accounting London: Prentice Hall, 1999 Lucey,T.,1988 Management accounting 2nd ed. London: DP Publications Roslender,R. and Hart,S.,2003 In search of strategic management accounting : theoretical and field study perspectives .Management Accounting Research 14 , pp.255-279 Ryan, B.,1998, Strategic Accounting for Management 5th ed ,Australia: Thomson Learning Tillmann, K.,2008 Strategic management accounting and sense-making in a multinational company, Management Accounting Research ,19,pp.80-102 Wright, D.,1996 Management accounting London: Longman

Using Talk for Learning in the Primary School

Using Talk for Learning in the Primary School Historically, talk was discouraged in a classroom.  It was a place for the teacher to give instructions and the class simply to  listen. However, the use of talk for learning has been studied in recent years, indicating that it can in fact be constructive. In this study, I explored how talk could be used for two particular purposes. Firstly, as a tool to optimise childrens learning in a classroom environment; secondly, for a teacher to assess the childrens understanding by listening to the childrens talk in return. Alexander (2008: p.93) states, If children need talk in order to learn about the world, teachers need talk in order to learn about children.   My theory was that talk is not the obstruction to learning that it was considered in the past, but rather a powerful tool in the classroom. I believed that teachers could use talk constructively in order for children to gain a deeper understanding of the material presented to them. To investigate how to use talk in the classroom effectively, I looked at past research and conducted my own observations and investigations during a four week placement. This will help me to develop my own teaching techniques in the future. I conducted this study at a Grade 2 Leicester city school with nearly 400 children on roll, aged from 4 to 11. The pupils within the school were mostly from minority ethnic backgrounds, predominantly Asian and Asian British and speaking English as a second language (Ofsted, 2009).   I was based with 27 children in one of two Year 3 classes. Literature Review It is only during the last 40 years or so that the quantity and quality of talk in the classroom has been studied and evaluated. A key concern is that constructive talk in the classroom is still underused (Alexander, 2008: p.92). The Primary National Strategy which was introduced in 2003 barely touches upon talk at all (DfES, 2003a cited in Cambridge Primary Review, 2009: p.15) and as a result teachers are left with little advice on how to use talk effectively for learning. This isnt the case elsewhere in Europe. Alexander (2008: p.99) reported that in France dialogue has a much greater emphasis in the classroom. He noted that good skills in speech, reasoning and the ability to argue would identify an educated person in France, whereas in Britain good readers and writers are valued higher in society. Despite this emphasis on reading and writing skills in Britain, the Confederation of British Industry reported in 2006 that spelling and grammar skills are of a low standard (Alexander, 2008: p.99). The National Curriculum requires children to read from age five, but Sage (2000: p.135) thinks that children are sometimes being required to read before they have developed the necessary language and communication skills to read with comprehension. The National Strategies argue that talk is an acquired skill rather than one that can be taught (Alexander, 2008: p.100), but this does not mean that the teacher cannot support childrens talk development. Language can be modelled and encouraged in the classroom and this would particularly benefit children with English as a second language, where it may not be spoken or supported effectively at home. Alexander (2008), cited in Mercer and Hodgkinson (2008: p.105), gave five principles to outline the key features of dialogic teaching, all of which can encourage classroom talk and increase these language and communication skills. The first three principles were teaching must be collective, reciprocal and cumulative. To achieve this, the teachers and children must learn together as a group, share ideas and build on the ideas of their peers as well as their own. The fourth principle was the teachers plan must be purposeful with particular learning objectives, a matter that is now generally used in every lesson. Finally, Alexander (2008: p.185) emphasised the importance of a supportive learning environment; children should be able to express ideas without the worry of being embarrassed if they give what the teacher sees as an unsatisfactory response. Alexander (2003, 2004b), cited in Alexander (2008: pp. 115-116), found that following a period of dialogic teaching, children answered questions with more clarity and confidence, listened better, thought aloud more and were more helpful and respectful to their peers. Furthermore, following the increase in talk, the childrens skills in reading and writing showed improvement, especially the less able. This supports Sages theory that language is essential for literacy. However, Smith et al. (2004 cited in Alexander, 2008: p.108) found that, in the classes they studied, childrens answers only lasted an average of five seconds and in 70% of occasions were limited to a maximum of three words. This indicates that dialogic teaching is not being widely used. Question-answer methods are more commonly used, aiming to develop understanding, improve recall and encourage imagination (Sage, 2000: p.64). Questions encourage children to verbalise their thoughts (Van Ments, 1990: p.77), which can provide the vital link between language, reading and writing. Questioning techniques are popular because they enable the teacher not only to control the use and context of talk, but to also gauge the childrens level of understanding, knowledge and creativity. Questions allow for another perspective to be added and misconceptions to be corrected immediately, making them more accessible than written comments, which can easily be ignored. However, Barnes (1976/1992, cited in Barnes 2008: p.6) noted the difficulty in teachers gaining a full understanding of a childs thinking by relying on short answers to questions. Thus, although questioning provides an immediate way of informally assessing the children and giving feedback, it can be a vague and narrow minded approach to assessing a childs ability, so it should be used alongside other methods. In England, open questions are generally thought of as preferable; children think through the answers themselves rather than merely repeating a teachers pre-determined answer. However, teachers still tend to ask a large proportion of closed questions (Barnes et al, 1986, Alexander, 1992; both cited in Myhill and Dunkin, 2005: p.416). Myhill et al. (2006: p.72) used a complex model, creating four categories of questions; process, procedural, factual and speculative. We may generally think of factual questions as closed and speculative as open. They found that the majority (60%) of questions asked by teachers were factual. Sometimes closed questions are preferable. Sullivan (1992) found that using open questions to teach mathematics had no advantage. This may be due to the extremely factual nature of mathematics, with a right or wrong answer which is not negotiable. Open questions are more effective when the child can use their personal experiences and ideas to extend their understanding. Barnes (1976/1992, cited in Barnes 2008: pp.5-7) constructivist approach divides talk into exploratory and presentational. Exploratory talk defines the child verbalising ideas, taking others contributions into account and ordering these to develop their own understanding. Open questions can encourage children to use exploratory talk. Presentational talk takes the audience into account and happens frequently when children recall information, allowing the teacher to assess their knowledge (Barnes, 2008: p.6), thus the teacher can ask closed questions to encourage presentational talk. Barnes believed a child should have the opportunity to order their ideas through exploratory talk before being asked to present them through presentational talk (Barnes, 2008: p.7). In the classroom both talk types are vital, but teachers must use them appropriately by being aware of the benefits of both; many teachers dont give children enough time to grasp new ideas through exploratory talk before using presentational talk (Barnes, 2008: p.7). Children need time to talk, develop and share before they can gain a firm understanding (Barnes, 2008: p.2). Piaget understood the importance of exploratory talk. He believed that a childs intelligence is based on their interactions with their environment and their commitment to develop their own understanding (Mercer and Littleton, 2007: p.8-9). Piaget believed that every child has a schema an understanding of the world around them. Exploratory talk supports new knowledge and experiences to be either assimilated if they fit a childs existing schema, or accommodated if the schema must be changed corresponding to the new information (Piaget and Inhelder, 1969). Piaget labelled the teacher simply as the assessor and provider to give children these facilities to learn actively (Moore, 2000: p.13). Group work provides children with this opportunity, since it allows the children to self-discover and share their ideas with one another. Piaget believed that children worked most efficiently when grouped into similar stages of development. Children are less likely to be intimidated if placed with others of a similar ability, encouraging them to talk through their ideas together. Vygotskys theory contradicts this. He named the bridge between a childs current level of knowledge and their potential level the Zone of Proximal Development and described the support given to reach this potential level as scaffolding (Mercer and Littleton, 2007; pp.14-15). Due to the structured and guided nature of scaffolding, Vygotsky believed that dialogue worked best when children were guided by an adult or a child of a higher level of knowledge. Methods and Procedure My investigation was based on two science tasks on floating and sinking, a topic in which the children had very little prior knowledge. The same four children attended two twenty minute sessions and my aim was to develop their knowledge on why objects float or sink (see Appendices A and B for lesson plans). I planned the tasks after observing the teacher and children in a wide range of subjects (Appendices C and D) to gain an understanding of the teachers practices and record how talk was used in the classroom. I particularly observed the types of questions the teacher used, the use of exploratory and presentational talk, how the children were grouped together and the use of dialogic teaching, to see their influence on the childrens learning and the teachers assessment opportunities. Reflecting upon the effectiveness of these methods influenced my own lessons within the class (Appendix E). I used a lot of talk within these lessons, so the post-lesson evaluations (Appendix F) allowed me to observe which talk methods were the most effective, which in turn influenced my science task plans. My TE1 partner observed and took notes of the discussion and activities during these tasks (Appendix G). Worksheets also allowed me to record the childrens ideas (Appendices H and I). The first science task was to assess the childrens initial understanding of floating and sinking. I documented the general misconceptions that were stated during this session (Appendix J). The second science task, influenced by these misconceptions, provided the children with experiences aimed to develop their understanding. Analysis and Interpretation of Evidence I analysed the areas of dialogic teaching, exploratory talk, questioning and ability grouping with relation to talk for learning and assessment. Dialogic Teaching Alexanders dialogic teaching principles were all present in an observed lesson (Appendix C). The children were sat on the carpet for the starter, sharing and developing their ideas. The teacher had a specific learning objective and used questions to structure the lesson and assess the childrens understanding. This technique was successful in forcing the children to think for themselves and vocalise their ideas aloud, so that their ideas could be shared and developed together. Using talk in the classroom allowed the children to gain a deeper understanding, as misconceptions could be discussed and good contributions verbally rewarded, which encouraged the children to carefully think through their answers. Dialogic talk kept the children engaged, whereas in lessons that did not include much dialogic talk, I observed that the children tended to lose interest sooner, suggesting that talk can aid concentration. Aspects of dialogic teaching were present in all lessons but not necessarily all five principles, supporting previous research which indicates that dialogic teaching is not widely used (Smith et al, 2004). The lessons always had a purposeful plan and usually incorporated a collective approach, for example via class discussions. However, the other three aspects (reciprocal, cumulative and a supportive environment) were not always present; children didnt always have the opportunity to share and develop ideas together and the teacher often expected a certain answer, which resulted in many children not being confident enough to answer in case they were wrong. Shy children and those of a lower ability struggled more in these lessons, possibly due to a lack of structured idea sharing. Appendix K shows the work of a less able child during a literacy lesson before and after dialogue; the improvement of her writing after using talk based on dialogic teaching is astounding. This supports Alexanders (2008) findings; the writing of less able children improved following dialogic teaching. Thus, Alexanders principles of dialogic teaching are all important and dictate how talk can be used constructively to create a positive learning environment. I included dialogic teaching myself within my tasks. I used talk to assess the childrens knowledge, develop their understanding and encourage them to share their ideas without being intimidating; the children had time to express and develop their ideas, or expand on their peers ideas. They gave long answers, such as I was surprised that the wooden cube floated because I thought it would sink because of its shape. This contradicts Smith et al.s (2004) research, which found that 70% of answers didnt exceed three words. The children added to each others ideas politely and seemed genuinely interested in the opinions of others. For example, when one child stated that wood sank, another pointed out that in a film they had recently watched as a class, the boat was made from wood and floated. The first child then admitted that this was true; this new insight allowed them to assimilate this new concept into their schema. Without conversation different perspectives like this, which can be the link to understanding, might be lost. Exploratory Talk Within the observed science lesson the teacher set up an experiment. A lot of exploratory talk was encouraged (Appendix C) before the children made their own predictions. During the follow up lesson, the experiment was completed; the children used presentational talk to explain the results. This allocation of talk types worked well, supporting Barness (2008: p.7) theory that giving children time for exploratory talk is favourable, allowing them to gather their ideas before expressing their conclusions using presentational talk. I found exploratory talk to be very beneficial in my second science task to encourage self-discovery. I found that the childrens talk didnt always flow fluently, but as Barnes (2008: p.4) observed, exploratory talk is hesitant and incomplete because it enables the speaker to try out ideas, to hear how they sound, to see what others make of them, to arrange information and ideas into different patterns. Using exploratory talk allowed the children to express opinions and consider everyones experiences, thus gaining a deep understanding of the topic. Questioning My findings extend the research of Barnes et al (1986), Alexander (1992) and Myhill at al (2006), who found closed questions were dominant in the classroom overall. I found that in numeracy and some foundation subjects, closed questions were dominant; they simply follow the facts, e.g. What is half of 50? According to Sullivan, although open questions are generally preferable, they have no advantage in numeracy. However, within literacy and science most questions were open, e.g. Why do you think the egg will disappear? (Appendix C). The children were encouraged to refer to their own experiences and ideas to construct their own predictions. Therefore, the dominant question type depended on the subject. I found open questions to be an advantage in my science task; children were encouraged to provide and develop their own original ideas, e.g. Why did you think the cork will float? Soon the children offered developed ideas without encouragement, e.g. I think the cork will float because it is made from wood. Open questions allowed me to model responses until children expanded their answers naturally. Ability Grouping The groupings I saw generally supported Piagets approach of ability grouping, which is common practice across the UK. Numeracy consisted of two ability groups and lower ability children were often grouped together in literacy. I found this approach preferable to encourage peer talk within a familiar topic, since they were not intimidated to discuss their ideas. Vygotskys approach of putting a learner with someone of a higher level of knowledge was rarely used on a peer level. It concentrates on developing the skills of the lower ability child and is of little aid to the higher ability child. However, this scaffolding was present in adult-child teaching, for example an autistic child had a teaching assistant someone of higher ability who supported his development. It was a very effective method, but this level of personalised teaching is too time-consuming and impractical to use on every child. My science task consisted of both the children developing their ideas together (similar ability teaching) and myself aiding them (higher ability teaching). I found that when I wasnt controlling the discussion the children were very enthusiastic share ideas, but often presented inaccurate ideas to one another as facts. Therefore, I needed to step in to avoid the children sharing their misconceptions. The children were more relaxed by having no input from someone of a higher ability, but I found that this method did not work in this case. This may have been because it was a new topic; therefore the children had little experience to call upon. Validity I have based this study on a series of observations within a wide range of subjects to gain a thorough insight into talk for learning within a particular class. However, I concentrated on one teacher, one class and my science task was based on only four children. Therefore, my conclusions assume that other classes would act similarly. On the other hand, my findings are often supported by other studies which have used a larger test sample. These studies increase the validity of my own findings. Conclusion of Findings Dialogic Teaching Dialogic teaching is very effective when encouraging new and creative ideas. It builds confidence, as the children are encouraged not to rely too heavily on their teacher, but to be in charge of their own learning. Children can share ideas, develop their own, improve their communication skills and the teacher can assess the childrens talk content. I found that dialogic talk improved childrens imagination and understanding. My research supported Alexanders (2003, 2004b) findings that dialogic teaching encourages children to answer questions confidently and clearly and listen respectfully to their peers. Using dialogic teaching also allowed me to assess the children quickly and subtly. Children who needed extra help could be identified before the main activity if dialogic talk is used during the lesson starter. Exploratory Talk I found that it is good practice to give children time for exploratory talk when starting a new topic, to discuss and develop ideas in an informal setting. Only when children have personally ordered these ideas should presentational talk be introduced. Exploratory talk allows new concepts to be assimilated or accommodated into the childs existing schema. Questioning I think open questions are vital to encourage children to think for themselves, allowing the children to achieve a deeper understanding. However, closed questions are appropriate in factual based subjects such as maths, since there is not much room for opinion. Questioning can gauge the general understanding of the class and encourage the children to share and develop their ideas. Individual knowledge can be assessed and immediate feedback given. However, as Barnes (1976/1992) notes, it is difficult to gain a deep understanding of individuals knowledge, so questioning should be used alongside other methods. Ability Grouping Placing children with someone of a higher ability was preferable when developing a new concept, to avoid misconceptions being shared and amplified. However, ability grouping was best to encourage talk when the children were applying and developing their understanding, since the children could discuss their work at the same level and without being intimidated. Conclusion of Investigation Focusing on specific areas of classroom talk allowed me to produce a focused analysis. My study was carefully planned, based on my areas of focus and observations of existing practice to analyse the use of talk for learning. I compared my findings to those of existing studies, drawing links between my literature review and my own research to increase validity. The small test sizes within this investigation may have negatively affected my results. For example, I found dialogic teaching effective, stating that the children were comfortable in expressing their ideas. However, the small group size might have created a less intimidating environment and in fact be the cause to the effect, rather than dialogic teaching itself. My observations were based on the same class, so discrepancies in location, age and teaching will not have been picked up. Therefore, to improve the accuracy and validity of my results, I would have to look at a wider range of schools and age groups. Overall, by developing my investigation in a structured and focused manner, I gained a well rounded insight into the best ways of using talk for learning, which I will apply in my own teaching. (Word Count: 3500) Referencing Alexander, R. 2008: Essays on Pedagogy. London, UK: Routledge. Alexander, R. 2008: Culture, Dialogue and Learning: Notes on an Emerging Pedagogy. In Mercer N. and Hodgkinson S. (ed.). Exploring Talk in School. London, UK: Sage Publications, pp.91-114. Barnes, D. 2008: Exploratory Talk for Learning. In Mercer N. and Hodgkinson S. (ed.). Exploring Talk in School. London, UK: Sage Publications, pp.1-15. Cambridge Primary Review. 2009: Towards a new Primary Curriculum. Accessed 27/10/10: www.primaryreview.org.uk/Downloads/Curriculum_report/CPR_Curric_rep_Pt1_Past_Present.pdf Mercer, N. and Littleton, K. 2007: Chapter 2 How Does Interaction Help Learning and Development? in Dialogue and the Development of Childrens Thinking: A Sociocultural Approach. London, UK: Routledge, pp.8-23. Myhill, D. and Dunkin, F. 2005: Questioning Learning. UK: University of Exeter, Vol. 19, No. 5, pp.415-428. Accessed 10/12/10: http://eric.exeter.ac.uk/exeter/bitstream/10036/15292/1/MyhillDunkinQuestioningLearning.pdf Myhill, D. et al. 2006: Chapter 4 Questioning and Learning in Talking, Listening, Learning: Effective Talk in the Primary Classroom. Maidenhead: Open University Press, pp.68 -84. Ofsted (2009) Section 5 Inspection. Accessed 05/12/10: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk Sage, Rosemary. 2000: Class Talk: Successful Learning Through Effective Communication. Stafford, UK: Network Educational Press Ltd. Sullivan, P. 1992: Using Open Questions For Teaching: A Classroom Experiment. Victoria, Australia: Australian Catholic University. Accessed 17/11/10: www.merga.net.au/documents/RP_Sullivan_1992.pdf Van Ments, Morry. 1990: Active Talk: The Effective Use of Discussion in Learning. London, UK: Kogan Page Limited. Jones, P. 1988: Lipservice: The Story of Talk in School. Milton Keynes, England: Open University Press. Sharp, E. 2005: Learning Through Talk in the Early Years Practical Activities for the Classroom. London, UK: Paul Chapman Publishing, A SAGE Publications Company. Moore, A. 2000: Teaching and learning: pedagogy, curriculum and culture. London, UK: RoutledgeFalmer.

The Death Penalty Essay -- Capital Punishment Essays

The Death Penalty in the United States is still intact, but in other Nations it has been abolished. These countries abolished it because they thought it to inhumane and cruel. One hundred and thirty-six nations have abolished the death penalty. Now in this essay I will tell the reasons some states and countries still have the death penalty and why some do not, also some cases of people getting sentenced to it when they were really innocent. The first thing I am going to talk about is the states and countries that still have the death penalty. In the United States the death penalty is still held as a sentence for many reasons like; most Americans still support the death penalty, the eye-for-an eye mentality still holds firm in the conservative heartland, and the leaders still believe that it is effective against a violent crime. I think the only thing they don't think about when they approve of the penalty is the innocent people that get â€Å"proven guilty† are not really guilty and they are put to death for something they didn't even do. In the case of Kobe Bryant, he was proven guilty for sexually assaulting a 19 year old girl in his home town of Eagle, Colorado. He even admitted that he had committed adultery but they still proved guilty even though he didn't do it. He was sentenced to maximum sentence to life in prison. In the state of Texas, they have prosecuted four times more inmates than in any one single state. Only thirty-six of the fifty states still have the death penalty and those states include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connetticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana,. Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Miss... ... Each year there are about 250 people added to death row and 35 executed. From 1976 to 1995 there were a total of 314 people put on death row in the U.S. 179 of them were put to death using lethal injection, 123 were put to death using electrocution, 9 were put to death in a gas chamber, 2 were hung, and 1 was put to death using the firing squad. The death penalty is the worst form of punishment gave in the United Sates. Once the jury has convicted a criminal, they go to the second part of the trial, the punishment phase.   Different forms of the death penalty are more reasonable than others. In the 1920's people decided that lethal gas, or the gas chamber, was more reasonable than the electric chair. Is the death penalty just or unjust? Well one of the "Ten Commandments" states, " Thou shalt not kill." Wouldn't this mean that the death penalty is murder?

Radar in the Modern World :: essays research papers fc

Research Paper  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Radar in the Modern World   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Radar is usually taken for granted in these days of modern technology. Many people do not know how radar is really used, how it works, or why we need it. People are familiar with several uses of radar like police enforcement radar guns and radar that measures how fast a baseball is pitched in a major league game. These are only a few of the many uses radar has to offer. Radar can determine several properties of an object from a distance, such as its position, speed, direction of travel, and shape; it can also detect objects out of the range of sight in all weather conditions, making it a fundamental utility for many industries.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The term radar actually came from the acronym representing RAdio Detection And Ranging. Radar is a detection system used to locate and identify objects. Simply put, radar is the process in which radio waves are emitted from the source of the system; those waves ricochet off objects in their path, and the radar system detects the echoes of signals that return.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"One would think that so important a contribution to the world’s technology would be chronicled with great care at every step†¦This, unfortunately, is not the case, and for reasons quite understandable† (Page 14). Sometimes history can be hard to distinguish from truth and legend, the history of radar is no exception. Many contributions have been made to the development of radar over the years. For many years prior and during the Second World War, radar was considered a top-secret military tool. Once it was made public, people used the existing information about radar to come up with their own variations for different applications. As a result, the true origin of radar has become blurred within conflicting claims.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Radar can be traced back as far as 1832 when British physicist Michael Faraday suggested the existence of an electromagnetic field between certain objects from his scientific observations. Working from these ideas, British physicist James Clerk Maxwell predicted mathematically the existence and behavior of radio waves in 1873. In 1886, physicist Heinrich Hertz from Germany and Elihu Thomson from America confirmed the existence of radio waves with demonstrations showing examples of reflection, refraction, and direction finding of radio waves. By 1904, Christian Hulsmeyer, a German inventor, applied for a patent for a device that used radio waves in a collision-avoidance device for ships.

Free Essays - Gene and Finny of A Separate Peace :: Separate Peace Essays

A Separate Peace Gene and Finny       In A Separate Peace, the main characters are foils of one another. The plot is pushed along by the changing dynamics of their friendship. Their relationship begins to drift apart when their personalities clash. The changing dynamics of Gene and Finny's relationship and the revelations in Gene's personality are what move the plot along.    At first, Gene fights against his memories. The story is opened with Gene returning to his old school, Devon. A struggle, or some sort of conflict, is clear by the way he practically forces himself to return to the staircase and the tree. He comments on how things have changed, which reflects how he himself has changed. The staircase is hard now, he notices, showing that he feels detached from the object. Meanwhile, the tree is now shrunken and identical to the other trees, which could mean that Gene has moved on from whatever significance the tree once held. The rain that starts falling later is a universal symbol of sadness, foreshadowing a tragic event later on in the story that involves him and the school. After seeing the tree and staircase and noting that they no longer seem as intimidating, a weight seems to be lifted off of Gene's conscious and he returns to shelter.    At first, Gene seems to be awed by Finny. Although his friend is more athletic than him, Gene is proud of the other boy's accomplishments. In fact, he is proud to be so close to a well-loved student. He considers himself lucky to be considered Finny's best friend. It becomes evident that jealously engrains itself into the friendship, however. Gene soon views not himself to be the lucky one, but Finny. He views all of Finny's good fortune to be his own bad luck. Whenever Finny gets out of trouble by being blatantly obvious, he thinks of it as himself being inadequate and not as good as his friend. This is shown at the luncheon both boys are invited to when Finny explains his inappropriate belt.    Although Gene and Finny are very different, they are also united in several ways. Both boys like to be in charge and are comfortable in leadership positions.

Article Rebuttal Essay

For the past 17 months, shown on every television news channel across the United States. The case of George Zimmerman, and the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Like every year, the media will take a case and publicly turn the story into a circus. The rebuttal article for this paper is a story written by Oliver Knox of Yahoo.com titled, â€Å"Obama: Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.† Further discussion will analyze the reliability, credibility, and validity of the data used by Oliver Knox, and identify any logical fallacies in the argument. The article is about President Barack Obama making his first public comments on the George Zimmerman acquittal. The president stated that many African Americans believe the outcome and aftermath of the trial would have been different if Trayvon Martin had been white. The president later stated that when he first heard about this story, his thoughts said this could have been his son (Obama, 2013). Then getting more personal by saying this could have been me 35 years ago (Obama, 2013). By using personal experiences, the president discussed his life as a young African American dealing with racism in the United States. I find that the reliability, credibility, and validity of this article and author Oliver Knox highly trusted, convincing, and believable. News articles written and posted by Yahoo.com reports a straightforward message to their audience. Reporting stories down the middle, never too left or right with the occasional bias author either for or against a particular topic. Keeping political views down to a minimal. This particular article matches other similar articles written on the same news story. Second, Oliver Knox wrote the story on the statements and words of the president as he addresses the American public. Third, the genuine author of this story is President Barack Obama himself, Oliver Knox just wrote his statement. The audience that the president focused on in his address is the African American people. Using his own personal experiences, the president can relate to the ongoing outrage of the African American  public. President Obama feels the pain and disappointments of the outcome of the case. Because of this story first came out 17 months ago, many logical fallacies surfaced about this case. First, the media leaned toward a killing of an innocent young 17-year-old boy, minding his own business. Then showing a photo of this boy at the age of 12. Then here comes George Zimmerman, looking for trouble and looking for a fight by picking on a young African American boy. Would the story stay the same if George Zimmerman was African American with the same outcome, the public will never know what happened that night. Meanwhile, the story set the tone for future stories about this case. Raising the question about race possess anything to do with the incident between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin. The logical fallacies of this article happened when President Obama expressed his concerns and personal experiences with the American people. This incident could easily be him 35 years ago as a young person dealing with racism in America. Concern that African Americans think that this case developed on race. A belief in the legal system would have a different outcome if Trayvon were white. Even after juror number B37 came out stating that race had no issue to the outcome of the case. Both the jury and legal experts stated that Zimmerman and Trayvon made poor judgment the night, which led to the death of Trayvon. Statements by the jury referring the only reason for Zimmerman’s acquittal because the way the â€Å"stand your ground† law is written. This article also provided some good highlighted points. The president encouraged his audience to support and encourage the young people of this country by helping them achieve and succeed in life. To be more influential and guide them on the right track. If the young people do not have the support from family, friends, neighbors, and the community, who will help them stay on the righteous path (Obama, 2013). This news article written by Oliver Knox and other journalists in this country, reporting the feelings and concerns addressed by this nation’s leader. Stating the issue of racism still lives in the lives of some American people. Relating to his own personal feelings on racism and demanding change to overcome these barriers. So the people, as a nation will never see another George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin case again. References Knox, O. (2013). Obama: Trayvon Martin ‘could have been me 35 years ago’. Yahoo New.com. Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/-obama–trayvon-martin-%E2%80%98could-have-been-me-35-years-ago%E2%80%99–180734663.html Millstone, K. (2013). Obama: Trayvon Martin ‘could have been me’. MSN News. Retrieved from http://news.msn.com/us/obama-trayvon-martin-could-have-been-me

Admissions letter for Forensic Nursing Program masters level

Interest and influence are two main reason why I want to pursue a Forensic course. Influenced by people who are dear to me serves as my motivation in order to succeed in this field of Nursing. Personal experiences gave me learnings and responsibilities that molded me to be what I am now.My endeavors in life that I wished to happen at the right time comes with great purpose. This is for me to finish my masters degree in a Forensic Nursing program offered by Duquesne University Pittsburgh,   PA. I can say that my previous experiences in life has great impact once I mixed it with a Masteral Degree.My optimism helps me accept problems as challenges that are vital for me as an individual. I can say that I am a good student and willing to risk myself in every task assigned by my mentors. I have so many dreams and aspirations in life and I am looking forward to a brighter career in the field of Forensic Nursing.Looking back, I see my personal and academic experiences as stages of growth t hat have helped me to understand my own potential and the road that I wish to take in life. While vast opportunities are before me, I feel that my true calling lies in the fascinating and challenging world of Forensic Science and Nursing.I wish to study more about this field because I believe that choosing to undergo a program for my masters at Duquesne University aid me   to make my dream a reality and become a successful forensic scientist someday.In addition to these, I was able to convey passion for this field since my childhood. That I have been interested in forensics since I was a child. I would often watch forensic files and unsolved mysteries. As well as the HBO series with the coroner Dr. Michael Boden and how unsolved crimes were solved by means of forensic examination and investigation. I am currently a single mother of three beautiful children.They serve as my inspirations in life and my motivation to surpass all trials. I have worked as a full-time nurse and I was al so inducted into the gamma beta phi honor society back in 2002, the sigma theta tha honor nursing society back in 2005 and the alpha sigma labda honor society back in 2005. Being an exemplary student I won the freshman of the year award in 2002 and became the Recipient of