Decision Making

It is really a hot issue for everyone regarding decision making. In particular, decision making is defined as the process of choosing from among alternatives. People mostly say that right decision making is difficult ones and needs competent skills and experiences. There are many models identified by different scholars such as the classical decision making model, the behavioral decision-making model and Vroom-Yetton Normative model.etc. Among them, the common model of decision making is based on the concept of rationality and it has to be broken down into logical steps. There is one model I mostly practice in terms of decision making for my life. It is simple and practical as there are six steps in that model of decision making.
(1) Identifying the Problems
(2) Generating Alternatives
(3) Evaluating Alternatives
(4) Choosing an Alternative
(5) Implementing the Decision
(6) Evaluating the Decision
It really seems like simply and easily to follow the steps, however, regarding with right decision making, those practical steps are not enough and always require to have skills and knowledge and logical thinking. To illustrate, if we have to choose between a devil and a blue sea, it would be definitely needed to have logical thinking skill and calmness to handle and deal with the situation. If it can be overcame, it is proved as good decision maker and I doubt that smart decision rarely comes up from the coincidence and luck.

Knowledge Management

In M. Ed Master course I am studying, I am taking Knowledge Management (KM) as for elective course. I did choose that course as I do have a strong interest on that topic and I believe that KM will be one of the useful tools for my career path. In the course, it is focused on the KM in organization however, in my opinion, KM happens in individual and other groups in different situations. Among the success stories of KM I have read, I found one case study interesting for me as it was about why KM fails in one of the successful company in Hong Kong. That case study came up as the evaluation for 2 years long planned KM activities. In the case study, it was mentioned the company followed the important steps of implementing KM activities and needs assessment in the company. However, after two years later, it came out like unexpected unsuccessful results and outcomes. I was wondering even though the company applied successful KM activities and analysis with middle-up-down approach recommended by Nonaka, KM was failed to sustain successfully in the company.

Nevertheless, in that case study, the authors analyzed eight driving factors which contributed the failure of KM in the company.

(1) The top management was too ambitious or unrealistic to grasp and incorporate the best knowledge in industry into the company and their insufficient role support in encouraging the desired behavior.

(2) The mere presence of KM vision is not sufficient to guarantee KM success.

(3) There was no specific and appropriate guidelines for knowledge sharing activities had been devised.

(4) The instruments used to help acquire and stimulate knowledge creation and sharing encountered problems during implementation.

(5) Although a reward system was established for knowledge creation and sharing, the emphasis on extrinsic terms, such as monetary bonus, turned out to have an opposite and negative effect on cultivating the knowledge-sharing culture and trust among employees.

(6) There was a misleading notion that IT could be the cutting-edge solution to inspire KM in organization.

(7) It was noted that the KM initiative were left unattended once implemented.

(8) An undue emphasis and concern with the best practice knowledge at the company to improve short-term benefits at the expense of long-term goals.

As I learned from that case study is that adaptation is needed in any organization even though successful KM tools recommended by famous  scholars are applied, it is far way to be successful without adaptation which in line with the nature and culture of the company or the organization.

Comparative Education

The word “Comparative Education” has been widely used nowadays, however, it is said that “Comparative Education” has been developed starting from Pre-history period up to the present. There were many pioneers in the history in order to find lands to settle for a better life. Since then, those travelers had interests to nurture their children observing good things from others foreign lands and attempted to develop their communities. Particularly, they looked for the similarities and differences of other communities and adapt in their own community. There were many famous scholars in those areas such as Xenophon who did comparative studies for Persian and Sparta education, Plato, Julius Caesar, and Cicero especially who compared Greek and Roman education. Later on, other scholars like Victor Cousin who advocated to apply Prussian education experience in France and likewise Horrace Mann in America and Henry Barnard. The consecutive period was leading to analyze different education and reform and included many factors in terms of politics, economics, demographics and culture to consider the educational development. The well-known persons like William Torrey Harris from American suggesting the impossibility of borrowing one successful education system from different countries and reapply as there were many factors impacting differently in each county. When it comes to the most recent period approximately from 1900s up to the present, there were many factors taking for consideration for the development of comparative education with international cooperation, quality and research particularly focusing on the social sciences and humanities. Comparative Education becomes mainstream and headline for academic debate and research within different stakeholders from education; moreover, there were many books and articles for Comparative Education.

Nevertheless, that trend of Comparative Education could be encountered clearly in the western countries attempting for the quality of education while most of the eastern countries are having difficulty for equal access of education.  

Trends of Teaching and Learning

In 19^th century, the classroom, the fundamental infrastructure of most of any school, are often constructed  at the minimum cost as the design is a closed isolated space which could keep students in sight at all times during teaching. Physical classroom are mostly inflexible and task-unrelated time frame decided by school bells based on the bureaucratic arrangement of “time-period-teacher-group-subject matter” blocks designed by school managers. Pedagogic objectives, methodologies, and resources, evaluation processes and interactions between students and teachers were interfered by the physical space of the classroom. Therefore, student learning and development was rooted in the classroom that was not improved for student research, creative projects, cooperative work or co-teaching. Particularly, in many classrooms, there is hardly any free space for collaboration, development of competencies and skills and application of knowledge, hence, the physical setting for the teaching and learning process blocked interaction with teachers and among students and as for individually-centered role for teachers. It could be assumed that the physical design of classroom of most schools is irrelevant, inapplicable to students’ out-of-classroom realities and individual particular supposed futures. Those traditional school designs are irrelevant for the universal student development of the 21^st century skills as it is required to support the necessary variety of individual and group working areas for interaction in the teaching and learning process.

During the second half of the 20^th century, almost nobody expected that the information environment would develop so drastically in such a short period of time. However, internet has not been using widely and curriculum authorities, school managers nor examination boards have not been able to take hold of the full implications of reversal for the education of the 21^st century. It used to believe that the traditional concept of school grounded on explanations of teachers and on a few books as external sources of knowledge. Nowadays, students of the 21^st century education, there is no longer a need to emphasize and rely on textbooks, workbooks, a few maps and a dictionary as the internet is capable to provide endless student personalization and education possibilities and the potential of individual student.

I wonder what the teaching and learning situation will be like in next century ! Would it be artificial intelligence or robot teachers or any other things beyond our knowledge.