Response to four research questions

Education

The central focus of the Senge text is the concept of a "learning organization." Define the term "learning organization" as it applies to the Senge text in your own words.

A learning organization is an organization where people are -- essentially -- always learning and not only learning as individuals but learning as a team. Learning organizations are always looking to better themselves and find innovative ways of growing and expanding in order to create the best organization possible. Today, as technology grows and globalization is a fact of our world, people and organizations have to learn to be better learners and learners that are flexible to change, but they shouldn't just be flexible, they should also embrace change as it is an imminent part of society, organizations -- and life, as a whole. It is also important that every individual that is a part of an organization be committed to being a learner for life because, today, it doesn't work for just the boss to be the learner. Everyone has to be an active learner in an organization in order to create a true learning organization.

2. Defend or refute the following statement: Senge's concept of "systems thinking" has a relevance to the design of educational curricula. Provide a rationale for the argument.

Senge's (2006) concept of "systems thinking" does have relevance to the design of education curricula because an educational curriculum is a system for learning and therefore the systems thinking concept works perfectly. Creating a curriculum is an endeavor that requires specific thinking that relates to systems because the goal is to create a goal, really, a way of making a coherent and successful system that will aid in the process of learning. Senge uses the term "intercorrelated actions" (2006) when referring to systems, which makes sense when it comes to creating a curriculum for education because the whole system has got to make sense on a broad scale and all of the small actions have got to intercorrelate and thus make up a whole that is conducive to learning.

3. Choose one or more of the article in question four that synthesized your understanding of curriculum development. Provide a rationale for the selection.

Yi's (2005) article entitled "Effective ways to foster learning" can help understand curriculum development by understanding the "nature of learners and learning" (2005). Yi (2005) points out that there is a lack of equality between adult and children learners; while adults have the ability to self-direct themselves and be more goal-oriented, children may need more instruction and guidance and motivation when it comes to meeting goals. Yi postulates that objectivists tend to believe that learners take an active role in a learning process while constructivists see learning as a process of knowledge construction that comes via the learner and the environment (2005). Yi (2005) leans to the side of constructivism, which makes the most sense because knowledge has to come through our interaction with the environment because knowledge built through our own experiences with life and how we process those experiences and thus learn from them. There is no right or wrong way in curriculum development from a constructivist approach because knowledge is individually constructed by the learner herself on the foundation of what she already knows, so therefore it is impossible to come up with uniform learning outcomes for all students.

4. Devise five to seven criteria for judging the articles. (for example, ease of reading, application to curriculum development, author proved main points, and so on.) Evaluate each article objectively using the five to seven criteria. Based on the evaluation, name the article(s) you would recommend to a colleague or another student for professional development. Also, based on the evaluation, name the article(s) you would suggest be deleted from this paper. Provide a rational for each of the selections.

The criteria utilized is: (1) content; (2) structure; (3) ease of reading; (4) author's knowledge and ability to make points; (5) application to curriculum development. The article by Hills (2004) felt old in its content and style, the structure was fine, but not engaging. I found the ease of reading to be satisfactory and the author did seem knowledgeable on the topic, however, I felt that it would be hard to apply the article when developing curriculum.

Conversely, Yi's (2005) content was engaging and it comes from a constructivist view, which is more my point-of-view and I could relate because of that. I felt like the structure was good as well as the ease of reading. I was always engage. Yi's knowledge and point-making abilities is excellent and because of this, I feel that I could apply it easily to my curriculum developing in the future.

Young, Reiser & Dick's (1998) article, like Hills, felt old in its content and structure. While the ease of reading was alright as well as the authors' knowledge, I don't think I would use it for developing curriculum because it feels outdated.