Six Ways to Improve Your Nonverbal Communications Essay Example

Six Ways to Improve Your Nonverbal Communications Essay Example Six Ways to Improve Your Nonverbal Communications Essay Six Ways to Improve Your Nonverbal Communications Essay SIX WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR NONVERBAL COMMUNICATIONS By Vicki Ritts, St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley and James R. Stein, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. It is not only what you say in the classroom that is important, but its how you say it that can make the difference to students. Nonverbal messages are an essential component of communication in the teaching process. Teachers should be aware of nonverbal behavior in the classroom for three major reasons: An awareness of nonverbal behavior will allow you to become better receivers of students messages. You will become a better sender of signals that reinforce learning. This mode of communication increases the degree of the perceived psychological closeness between teacher and student. Some major areas of nonverbal behaviors to explore are: Eye contact Facial expressions Gestures Posture and body orientation Proximity Paralinguistics Humor Eye contact: Eye contact, an important channel of interpersonal communi cation, helps regulate the flow of communication. And it signals interest in others. Furthermore, eye contact with audiences increases the speakers credibility. Teachers who make eye contact open the flow of communication and convey interest, concern, warmth and credibility. Facial expressions: Smiling is a powerful cue that transmits: Happiness Friendliness Warmth Liking Affiliation Thus, if you smile frequently you will be perceived as more likable, friendly, warm and approachable. Smiling is often contagious and students will react favorably and learn more. Gestures: If you fail to gesture while speaking, you may be perceived as boring, stiff and unanimated. A lively and animated teaching style captures students attention, makes the material more interesting, facilitates learning and provides a bit of entertainment. Head nods, a form of gestures, communicate positive reinforcement to students and indicate that you are listening. Posture and body orientation: You communicate numerous messages by the way you walk, talk, stand and sit. Standing erect, but not rigid, and leaning slightly forward communicates to students that you are approachable, receptive and friendly. Furthermore, interpersonal closeness results when you and your students face each other. Speaking with your back turned or looking at the floor or ceiling should be avoided; it communicates disinterest to your class. Proximity: Cultural norms dictate a comfortable distance for interaction with students. You should look for signals of discomfort caused by invading students space. Some of these are: Rocking Leg swinging Tapping Gaze aversion Typically, in large college classes space invasion is not a problem. In fact, there is usually too much distance. To counteract this, move around the classroom to increase interaction with your students. Increasing proximity enables you to make better eye contact and increases the opportunities for students to speak. Paralinguistics: This facet of nonverbal communication includes such vocal elements as: Tone Pitch Rhythm Timbre Loudness Inflection For maximum teaching effectiveness, learn to vary these six elements of your voice. One of the major criticisms is of instructors who speak in a monotone. Listeners perceive these instructors as boring and dull. Students report that they learn less and lose interest more quickly when listening to teachers who have not learned to modulate their voices. Humor: Humor is often overlooked as a teaching tool, and it is too often not encouraged in college classrooms. Laughter releases stress and tension for both instructor and student. You should develop the ability to laugh at yourself and encourage students to do the same. It fosters a friendly classroom environment that facilitates learning. (Lou Holtz wrote that when his players felt successful he always observed the presence of good humor in the locker room. ) Obviously, adequate knowledge of the subject matter is crucial to your success; however, its not the only crucial element. Creating a climate that facilitates learning and retention demands good nonverbal and verbal skills. To improve your nonverbal skills, record your speaking on video tape. Then ask a colleague in communications to suggest refinements THE TRUE TEACHER ACCEPTS ALL STUDENTS By Ernest O. Melby from The Teacher and Learning A teacher says: I can accept my good students, those who behave and do good work, but I cant accept those who do not work, who have the wrong attitude and who cause me trouble. They forget that its the acceptance of all that gives power to the teacher. In fact, it is in relation to students who are difficult that the teachers true qualities are demonstrated. We all find it easy to accept those who lend themselves to our designs. It is in their relationship to those who cause them trouble, who are dirty and poorly dressed, and who fail to achieve that teachers prove their beliefs. It is the essence of the point of view here presented that only a complete gift of oneself makes the teacher an artist. Teaching is a jealous profession; it is not a sideline. This is not only because of the problem of time, nor because of the impact of lesser efforts on pupils: it is because of the effect on the teacher himself. It is only as we give fully of ourselves that we can become our best selves. Thus halfway measures and attitudes of whatever kind reduce our effectiveness. When we ask the teacher to give himself fully to his students, to his colleagues, to his community, and to humanity, we are thus only asking him to be maximally effective. Moreover, it is only as he gives himself that he can experience completely the joys and satisfactions of being a teacher. In this situation he is in the same position as any artist. Frustrated artists are often those who for one reason or another are unable or unwilling to make a complete gift of themselves to their art. Similarly, the unhappiest teachers are those who bemoan the weaknesses of their pupils and the conditions under which they work and who fail to sense that it is their own half-hearted efforts that defraud them. One measure of the teachers willingness to give of himself is his accessibility to his students, his willingness to spend time with them. One difficulty here is the narrow conception that often prevails about what it means to teach. To teach means more than to lecture or explain before a group of students. The best teachers influence their students more in their personal, individual contacts with them than in strict classroom situations. If teaching and learning are complementary processes, if the teacher is to teach by learning and if his teaching is to be directed toward an individual, he must know that individual. And how is he to know that individual if he spends little or no time with him alone? Another illusion defeats us. It is that there is some magic in lecturing and in the hearing of recitations. We want as much time for this as possible. We begrudge taking time to work with individual pupils. Yet we know very little about the actual effectiveness of what we do. Is it not at least possible that our classroom work would be greatly increased in effectiveness if only we spent more time with our pupils as individuals? We seem to be obsessed with teaching. We know that no one can educate another person, that all of us must educate ourselves. The teachers role is that of a helper in this process. The question is: How can we best help? GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF MOTIVATION Basic principles of motivation exist that are applicable to learning in any situation. 1. The environment can be used to focus the students attention on what needs to be learned. Teachers who create warm and accepting yet business-like (appropriate) atmospheres will promote persistent effort and favorable attitudes toward learning. This strategy will be successful in children and in adults. Interesting visual aids, such as booklets, posters, or practice equipment, motivate learners by capturing their attention and curiosity. 2. Incentives motivate learning. Incentives include privileges and receiving praise from the instructor. The instructor determines an incentive that is likely to motivate an individual at a particular time. In a general learning situation, self-motivation without rewards will not succeed. Students must find satisfaction in learning based on the understanding that the goals are useful to them or, less commonly, based on the pure enjoyment of exploring new things. . Internal motivation is longer lasting and more self-directive than is external motivation, which must be repeatedly reinforced by praise or concrete rewards. Some individuals particularly children of certain ages and some adults have little capacity for internal motivation and must be guided and reinforced constantly. The use of incentives is based on the principle that learning occurs m ore effectively when the student experiences feelings of satisfaction. Caution should be exercised in using external rewards when they are not absolutely necessary. Their use may be followed by a decline in internal motivation. 4. Learning is most effective when an individual is ready to learn, that is, when one wants to know something. Sometimes the students readiness to learn comes with time, and the instructors role is to encourage its development. If a desired change in behavior is urgent, the instructor may need to supervised directly to ensure that the desired behavior occurs. If a student is not ready to learn, he or she may not be reliable in following instructions and therefore must be supervised and have the instructions repeated again and again. . Motivation is enhanced by the way in which the instructional material is organized. In general, the best organized material makes the information meaningful to the individual. One method of organization includes relating new tasks to those already known. Other ways to relay meaning are to determine whether the persons being taught understand the final outcome desired and instruct them to com pare and contrast ideas. None of the techniques will produce sustained motivation unless the goals are realistic for the learner. The basic learning principle involved is that success is more predictably motivating than is failure. Ordinarily, people will choose activities of intermediate uncertainty rather than those that are difficult (little likelihood of success) or easy (high probability of success). For goals of high value there is less tendency to choose more difficult conditions. Having learners assist in defining goals increases the probability that they will understand them and want to reach them. However, students sometimes have unrealistic notions about what they can accomplish. Possibly they do not understand the precision with which a skill must be carried out or have the depth of knowledge to master some material. To identify realistic goals, instructors must be skilled in assessing a students readiness or a students progress toward goals. 1. Because learning requires changed in beliefs and behavior, it normally produces a mild level of anxiety. This is useful in motivating the individual. However, severe anxiety is incapacitating. A high degree of stress is inherent in some educational situations. If anxiety is severe, the individuals perception of what is going on around him or her is limited. Instructors must be able to identify anxiety and understand its effect on learning. They also have a responsibility to avoid causing severe anxiety in learners by setting ambiguous of unrealistically high goals for them. 2. It is important to help each student set goals and to provide informative feedback regarding progress toward the goals. Setting a goal demonstrates an intention to achieve and activates learning from one day to the next. It also directs the students activities toward the goal and offers an opportunity to experience success. 3. Both affiliation and approval are strong motivators. People seek others with whom to compare their abilities, opinions, and emotions. Affiliation can also result in direct anxiety reduction by the social acceptance and the mere presence of others. However, these motivators can also lead to conformity, competition, and other behaviors that may seem as negative. 4. Many behaviors result from a combination of motives. It is recognized that no grand theory of motivation exists. However, motivation is so necessary for learning that strategies should be planned to rganize a continuous and interactive motivational dynamic for maximum effectiveness. The general principles of motivation are interrelated. A single teaching action can use many of them simultaneously. Finally, it should be said that an enormous gap exists between knowing that learning must be motivated and identifying the specific motivational components of any particular act. Instructors must focus on learning patterns of motiv ation for an individual or group, with the realization that errors will be common. MOTIVATING STUDENTS By Barbara Gross Davis, University of California, Berkeley. From Tools for Teaching, Some students seem naturally enthusiastic about learning, but many need-or expect-their instructors to inspire, challenge, and stimulate them: Effective learning in the classroom depends on the teachers ability to maintain the interest that brought students to the course in the first place (Ericksen, 1978, p. 3). Whatever level of motivation your students bring to the classroom will be transformed, for better or worse, by what happens in that classroom. Unfortunately, there is no single magical formula for motivating students. Many factors affect a given students motivation to work and to learn (Bligh, 1971; Sass, 1989): interest in the subject matter, perception of its usefulness, general desire to achieve, self-confidence and self-esteem, as well as patience and persistence. And, of course, not all students are motivated by the same values, needs, desires, or wants. Some of your students will be motivated by the approval of others, some by overcoming challenges. Researchers have begun to identify those aspects of the teaching situation that enhance students self-motivation (Lowman, 1984; Lucas, 1990; Weinert and Kluwe, 1987; Bligh, 1971). To encourage students to become self-motivated independent learners, instructors can do the following: Give frequent, early, positive feedback that supports students beliefs that they can do well. Ensure opportunities for students success by assigning (appropriate) tasks that are neither too easy nor too difficult. Help students find personal meaning and value in the material. Create an atmosphere that is open and positive. Help students feel that they are valued members of a learning community. Research has also shown that good everyday teaching practices can do more to counter student apathy than special efforts to attack motivation directly (Ericksen, 1978). Most students respond positively to a well-organized course taught by an enthusiastic instructor who has a genuine interest in students and what they learn. Thus activities you undertake to promote learning will also enhance students motivation. General Strategies Capitalize on students existing needs. Students learn best when incentives for learning in a classroom satisfy their own motives for enrolling in the course. Some of the needs your students may bring to the classroom are the need to learn something in order to complete a particular task or activity, the need to seek new experiences, the need to perfect skills, the need to overcome challenges, the need to become competent, the need to succeed and do well, the need to feel involved and to interact with other people. Satisfying such needs is rewarding in itself, and such rewards sustain learning more effectively than do grades. Design assignments, in-class activities, and discussion questions to address these kinds of needs. Source: McMillan and Forsyth, 1991) Make students active participants in learning. Students learn by doing, making, writing, designing, creating, solving. Passivity dampens students motivation and curiosity. Pose questions. Dont tell students something when you can ask them. Encourage students to suggest approaches to a problem or to guess the results of an experiment. Use small group work. See Leading a Discussion, Supp lements and Alternatives to Lecturing, and Collaborative Learning for methods that stress active participation. (Source: Lucas, 1990) Ask students to analyze what makes their classes more or less motivating. Sass (1989) asks his classes to recall two recent class periods, one in which they were highly motivated and one in which their motivation was low. Each student makes a list of specific aspects of the two classes that influenced his or her level of motivation, and students then meet in small groups to reach consensus on characteristics that contribute to high and low motivation. In over twenty courses, Sass reports, the same eight characteristics emerge as major contributors to student motivation: Instructors enthusiasm Relevance of the material Organization of the course Appropriate difficulty level of the material Active involvement of students Variety Rapport between teacher and students Use of appropriate, concrete, and understandable examples. Incorporating Instructional Be haviors That Motivate Students Hold high but realistic expectations for your students. Research has shown that a teachers expectations have a powerful effect on a students performance. If you act as though you expect your students to be motivated, hardworking, and interested in the course, they are more likely to be so. Set realistic expectations for students when you make assignments, give presentations, conduct discussions, and grade examinations. Realistic in this context means that your standards are high enough to motivate students to do their best work but not so high that students will inevitably be frustrated in trying to meet those expectations. To develop the drive to achieve, students need to believe that achievement is possible -which means that you need to provide early opportunities for success. (Sources: American Psychological Association, 1992; Bligh, 1971; Forsyth and McMillan, 1991 -1 Lowman, 1984) Help students set achievable goals for themselves. Failure to attai n unrealistic goals can disappoint and frustrate students. Encourage students to focus on their continued improvement, not just on their grade on any one test or assignment. Help students evaluate their progress by encouraging them to critique their own work, analyze their strengths, and work on their weaknesses. For example, consider asking students to submit self-evaluation forms with one or two assignments. (Sources: Cashin, 1979; Forsyth and McMillan, 1991) Tell students what they need to do to succeed in your course. Dont let your students struggle to figure out what is expected of them. Reassure students that they can do well in your course, and tell them exactly what they must do to succeed. Say something to the effect that If you can handle the examples on these problem sheets, you can pass the exam. People who have trouble with these examples can ask me for extra help. Or instead of saying, Youre way behind, tell the student, Here is one way you could go about learning the material. How can I help you? (Sources: Cashin, 1979; Tiberius, 1990) Strengthen students self-motivation. Avoid messages that reinforce your power as an instructor or that emphasize extrinsic rewards. Instead of saying, I require, you must, or you should, stress I think you will find. . . or I will be interested in your reaction. (Source: Lowman, 1990) Avoid creating intense competition among students. Competition produces anxiety, which can interfere with learning. Reduce students tendencies to compare themselves to one another. Bligh (1971) reports that students are more attentive, display better comprehension, produce more work, and are more favorable to the teaching method when they work cooperatively in groups rather than compete as individuals. Refrain from public criticisms of students performance and from comments or activities that pit students against each other. (Sources: Eble, 1988; Forsyth and McMillan, 1991). Be enthusiastic about your subject. An instructors enthusiasm is a crucial factor in student motivation. If you become bored or apathetic, students will too. Typically, an instructors enthusiasm comes from confidence, excitement about the content, and genuine pleasure in teaching. If you find yourself uninterested in the material, think back to what attracted you to the field and bring those aspects of the subject matter to life for your students. Or challenge yourself to devise the most exciting way to present the material, however dull the material itself may seem to you. Structuring the Course to Motivate Students Work from students strengths and interests. Find out why students are enrolled in your course, how they feel about the subject matter, and what their expectations are. Then try to devise examples, case studies, or assignments that relate the course content to students interests and experiences. For instance, a chemistry professor might devote some lecture time to examining the contributions of chemistry to resolving environmental problems. Explain how the content and objectives of your course will help students achieve their educational, professional, or personal goals. (Sources: Brock, 1976; Cashin, 1979; Lucas, 1990) When possible, let students have some say in choosing what will be studied. Give students options on term papers or other assignments (but not on tests). Let students decide between two locations for the field trip, or have them select which topics to explore in greater depth. If possible, include optional or alternative units in the course. Sources: Ames and Ames, 1990; Cashin, 1979; Forsyth and McMillan, 1991; Lowman, 1984). Increase the difficulty of the material as the semester progresses. Give students opportunities to succeed at the beginning of the semester. Once students feel they can succeed, you can gradually increase the difficulty level. If assignments and exams include easier and harder questions, every student will have a chance to experience success as well as challenge. (Source: Cashin, 1 979) Vary your teaching methods. Variety reawakens students involvement in the course and their motivation. Break the routine by incorporating a variety of teaching activities and methods in your course: role playing, debates, brainstorming, discussion, demonstrations, case studies, audiovisual presentations, guest speakers, or small group work. (Source: Forsyth and McMillan, 1991) De-emphasizing Grades Emphasize mastery and learning rather than grades. Ames and Ames (1990) report on two secondary school math teachers. One teacher graded every homework assignment and counted homework as 30 percent of a students final grade. The second teacher told students to spend a fixed amount of time on their homework (thirty minutes a night) and to bring questions to class about problems they could not complete. This teacher graded homework as satisfactory or unsatisfactory, gave students the opportunity to redo their assignments, and counted homework as 10 percent of the final grade. Although homework was a smaller part of the course grade, this second teacher was more successful in motivating students to turn in their homework. In the first class, some students gave up rather than risk low evaluations of their abilities. In the second class, students were not risking their self-worth each time they did their homework but rather were attempting to learn. Mistakes were viewed as acceptable and something to learn from. Researchers recommend de-emphasizing grading by eliminating complex systems of credit points; they also advise against trying to use grades to control nonacademic behavior (for example, lowering grades for missed classes) (Forsyth and McMillan, 1991; Lowman 1990). Instead, assign ungraded written work, stress the personal satisfaction of doing assignments, and help students measure their progress. Design tests that encourage the kind of learning you want students to achieve. Many students will learn whatever is necessary to get the grades they desire. If you base your tests on memorizing details, students will focus on memorizing facts. If your tests stress the synthesis and evaluation of information, students will be motivated to practice those skills when they study. (Source: McKeachie, 1986) Avoid using grades as threats. As McKeachie (1986) points out, the threat of low grades may prompt some students to work hard, but other students may resort to academic dishonesty, excuses for late work, and other counterproductive behavior. Motivating Students by Responding to Their Work Give students feedback as quickly as possible. Return tests and papers promptly, and reward success publicly and immediately. Give students some indication of how well they have done and how to improve. Rewards can be as simple as saying a students response was good, with an indication of why it was good, or mentioning the names of contributors: Cherrys point about pollution really synthesized the ideas we had been discussing. (Source: Cashin, 1979) Reward success. Both positive and negative comments influence motivation, but research consistently indicates that students are more affected by positive feedback and success. Praise builds students self-confidence, competence, and self-esteem. Recognize sincere efforts even if the product is less than stellar. If a students performance is weak, let the student know that you believe he or she can improve and succeed over time. (Sources: Cashin, 1979; Lucas, 1990) Introduce students to the good work done by their peers. Share the ideas, knowledge, and accomplishments of individual students with the class as a whole: Pass out a list of research topics chosen by students so they will know whether others are writing papers of interest to them. Make available copies of the best papers and essay exams. Provide class time for students to read papers or assignments submitted by classmates. Have students write a brief critique of a classmates paper. Schedule a brief talk by a student who has experience or who is doing a research paper on a topic relevant to your lecture. Be specific when giving negative feedback. Negative feedback is very powerful and can lead to a negative class atmosphere. Whenever you identify a students weakness, make it clear that your comments relate to a particular task or performance, not to the student as a person. Try to cushion negative comments with a compliment about aspects of the task in which the student succeeded. (Source: Cashin, 1979) Avoid demeaning comments. Many students in your class may be anxious about their performance and abilities. Be sensitive to how you phrase your comments and avoid offhand remarks that might prick their feelings of inadequacy.

Quotes That Will Help You Understand Yourself Better

Quotes That Will Help You Understand Yourself Better When asked to describe yourself, you will most probably list your achievements, qualifications, work experience, and designation. To make your profile sound complete, you may even throw in a hobby for good measure. But are these the things that really make up who you are?  The toughest questions to answer are the ones about you. Who am I? What do I know about myself? When you begin to reflect ponder on these questions, you will find yourself squirming uncomfortably. Probe a little deeper and you will find that your name, race, gender, and other personal details are merely tags. To know yourself, look beyond superficial embellishments. It does not matter whether you are a Nobel Prize winner or not. Rediscover yourself through these quotes, perfect for self-reflection.   Muhammad AliIts lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself. Oscar WildePerhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected. Mark TwainI dont like to commit myself about heaven and hell you see, I have friends in both places. Mark TwainAs an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake. Marilyn MonroeI have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent. Marilyn MonroeI restore myself when Im alone. Maya AngelouI long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself. Thomas JeffersonI do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it. David AllenYou can do anything, but not everything. Lin-ChiWhen hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean. John WilmotBefore I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories. Jean RostandMy pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists. Lily TomlinSometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. Richard LewisI quit therapy because my analyst was trying to help me behind my back. Clarence DarrowWhen I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I’m beginning to believe it. Cullen HightowerLaughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else’s can shorten it. Cyril ConnollyThere are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say. Albert EinsteinThe person who reads too much and uses his brain too little will fall into lazy habits of thinking. Andre GideBelieve those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. Aryeh FrimerI’d rather live with a good question than a bad answer. Bill VaughanWe lear n something every day, and lots of times it’s that what we learned the day before was wrong. Cale YarboroughDon’t ever wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it. Christopher HamptonAsking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs. Cyril ConnollyBetter to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. Dame Edna EverageNever be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century. Edith SitwellI am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it. Gordon R. DicksonSome people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it. Lily TomlinThe trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat. NapoleonNever ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.Thomas Szasz When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.

Introduction to Supply Chain Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Introduction to Supply Chain Management - Essay Example They claimed that the quality of the parts they have been receiving from the outsourcing company were not up to standards. Inventory was then packed with products that were no longer of use to Boeing, losing them millions of dollars. Further investigations revealed that the outsourcing company wasn’t being watched over as closely as the engineers and companies throughout the country. Boeings main reason for outsourcing revolved around revenue purposes. The report finds that inventory product quality, as well as quantity supply is crucial within organizations and can cause a lot of problems if not watched and dealt with carefully. It is recommended that: the battery is dramatically improved by watching the quality of the parts inserted; Boeing launch and promote a campaign assuring non-faulty batteries; and resumes are looked over again by company officials. The limitations that may occur are that a product such as an airplane may require off shoring because some expertise exists only in foreign countries. Also, while there is nothing necessarily wrong with off shoring, the cultural and language differences as well as physical distances can add to the supply chain risks. Boeing is one of the major companies in the world that manufactures defense and commercial jetliners and security and space system. The company is faceted into two major business entities: the Boeing Space and Security and the Commercial airplane (Hiltzik, 2011). In addition, its other products are electronics, weapons satellites, defense system, military aircraft, systems of information and communication that are advanced et cetera. The company is not only one of the leading exporters of the US but also have connection with customers in the various countries of operation (approximately more than 150 nations). The company’s headquarters is in Chicago and it provides employment opportunities to approximately 180,000 individuals in the US and other nations

W4 discussions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

W4 discussions - Essay Example Waiting-line models can equally be applied in the manufacturing of soda, canned foods, automotive components, and plastic products, the list being practically inexhaustible. By analyzing queues in terms of average waiting time, and the length of the waiting line, among other factors, managers in the manufacturing setting can make vital decisions regarding how many machines they should engage in production, when to schedule maintenance for particular machines, and establish the probability of having a given quantity of materials or inventory running in the system (wps.prenhall.com, n.d.). Queuing theory may help managers establish the probability of a system being idle which is important in deciding when and how often to schedule maintenance services for machines and equipment. Simply stated, queuing theory is no less important in product manufacturing than it is in service industries. Linear programming is a widely used mathematical technique designed to help operations managers plan and make decisions. Why is LP so important in decision making? So what are the major components of a linear programming problem? What does linear programming tell us about the allocation of resources? Linear programming according to purplemath (n.d.) is the process of analyzing the different linear inequalities that apply to a given situation to find the optimum value that can be obtained under those conditions. In this respect, linear programming is important in obtaining the â€Å"best† (optimum) value of a variable for a given set of conditions (purplemath, n.d.). For decision makers, linear programming is important in finding optimum (maximum and minimum) values which are important such as in maximizing profits and minimizing expenses among other desirable results. A linear programming problem has four basic components; decision variables, data/parameters, constraints, and objective

Security in dorm halls Essay examples -- essays research papers

Security in dorm halls on universities across the nation is a huge problem that each campus must address, due to the amount of people living in such close quarters. Residence hall security should be an important factor in the college decision making process. Today’s college freshman arrives for the first day of his/her college career hampered with personal property of substantial value. Most students come to college equipped with an advanced computer system and can be the target of burglary. Many other items of value accompany the student. Sexual assaults are also a potential problem. The possibility of theft and sexual assaults make residence hall and individual room security a basic prevention strategy. To ensure a safe campus, it is imperitive to secure residence halls and escort all guests.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Most college students do not think about the repercussions of being lazy about security in their respective residence halls. However if there is no attention paid to who comes in and out, many crimes can and usually do happen. For instance, at the University of Connecticut, a survey of 690 undergraduates found that more than half of dorm residents say they have propped open a secured door. Nine out of ten know someone else who have also done the same. Half of those students who had witnessed these doors left partly open, knew of incidents where strangers had come into the building unescorted. Of those strangers, one in five knew of a crime that resulted b...

Stanford Prison Experiment and Hard-hitting Local Editorials

For hundreds of thousands of years, human civilizations tended to barter for goods, trading shells and precious stones for food and other important commodities. For the first evidence of money as currency, we need to go back 5,000 years to where modern-day Iraq now sits, to find ‘the shekel’. Though this was the first form of currency, it was not money as we know and understand it today. It actually represented a certain weight of barley, a kind of plant, equivalent to gold or silver. Eventually, the shekel became a coin currency in its own right. In much the same way, Britain’s currency is alled ‘the pound’, because it was originally equivalent to a pound of silver. The ancient Greeks and Romans used gold and silver coins as currency, with the Latin ‘denarius’ ultimately giving birth to ‘dinar’ in various countries including Jordan and Algeria, and providing the ‘d’ that served as an abbreviation for the British penny before decimalization in 1971. It also gives us the word for money in Spanish and Portuguese – ‘dinero’ and ‘dinhero’. The first ever banknotes were issued in 7th-century China, though it took another 1,000 years before the idea of paper money was adopted in Europe, y Sweden’s Stockholms Banco in 1661. British scientists have begun studying a rare meteorite to reveal more about the history of Mars. The rock, named ‘Tissint’ after the Moroccan area where it crashed in July 2011, was recovered from the ground just five months later – not enough time to be too contaminated. â€Å"The Tissint sample is probably the most important meteorite to have landed on the Earth in the last 100 years,† says Dr. Caroline Smith, curator of meteorites at the Natural History Museum in London. An analysis of the rock revealed its Martian origin. It would have been removed from Mars when an asteroid struck he planet, staying in spa ce as debris before being attracted by the Earth’s gravity. Of the 41,000 officially recognized meteorites, 61 come from Mars and the Tissint rock is only the fifth that was witnessed falling. Dr. Tony Irving of Washington University, who performed some initial analysis on the sample, does not think there is much chance of finding fossilized life within it. But the British team could reveal whether minerals have been affected by water or contain elements such as carbon. Smith says â€Å"We’re not looking for microbes, but we’re looking for the chemical and environmental signatures to indicate whether Mars, at ome point in its past, may have provided a suitable environment for life to exist. † While playing computer games is sometimes seen as a solitary pursuit, a study at Brigham Young University shows that it actually enhances social connections. Studying the effect of multiplayer online games on marriages, researchers found that in the 76% of the cases where the couple played together, games actually aided the relationship. In other words, couples that gamed together stayed together. Games may have other effects on us too. The famous psychologist, Philip Zimbardo, recently spoke out on the subject. In his 1971Stanford Prison Experiment, in which volunteers were randomly assigned the roles of prisoner or guard, he showed that human behaviour is heavily influenced by environmental and social pressures. More recently, Zimbardo even suggested that exposing children to morally ambiguous situations in games could be useful in helping them develop their own moral compass. One possibility is to explore virtual worlds through computer games that could enable people to experience and understand concepts that they would otherwise find difficult to imagine. Games about society, populated by real people and open to all, could help test how different ultural backgrounds could be brought together in peace. The Although many community newspapers are justifiably proud of their hard-hitting local editorials, perhaps half of all community papers carry no editorials at all. Publishers who refuse to editorialize often claim that editorial harassing is resented in small communities. Others are fearful of alienating readers and advertisers. Still others say they do not have enough time to develop polished, well-researched editorials on a regular basis. Many publishers are leaders in the commercial and political lives of their towns, and are so much a part of he local power structure that their editorials would not be persuasive anyway. Those who editorialize assert that editorials and opinion columns give identity to their newspapers and leadership to their communities. Indeed, some of the most inspired writing the US has produced – the ‘Crisis’ essays of Tom Paine, the Federalist Papers explaining and defending the Constitution, the stirring commentary of William Allen White of Kansas – first saw the li ght of day as editorial or column material in a community newspaper. Courageous hometown editors regularly win Pulitzer Prizes and other professional honours for crusading ditorials on local issues. It Innovation is not a synonym for invention – an invention has to be taken to the market to be regarded as innovation. Innovation must change the way people do something. In an essay on creativity, Teresa Amabile and others describe innovation as ‘the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization’. Creativity, which includes invention, is only the starting point for innovation, which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it. As Amabile implies, the business of innovation needs to be managed all the way from the creative inspiration through to a launchable product or service.Innovation is not restricted to products and services. It might be internal to the business, in the form of new and more effective organizational structures or proce sses. It could be a new way of marketing or distribution, like online grocery deliveries. By today’s thinking, innovation can also be in the form of a significant improvement to an existing commodity. When you build a better product, not necessarily a revolutionary one, the whole world will want to buy it. A lot of small types of innovation like this are more akin to continuous improvement, which makes up 85-90% of the average corporate development portfolio. It

Essay about Technology A Rise or a Downfall - 611 Words

Technology: A Rise or a Downfall? Today, we are surrounded by all forms of modern technology. From the T.V. up to the phone, from our very own computers to the appliances we usually used. All these technologies contributed a lot in our daily necessities. These helps work even faster, and who don’t want things to be done fast and easy, right? Technologies nowadays also helps develop human capabilities and explore boundless opportunities. But the question is how long these technologies can help us? Although they sounded like they are helping us, but who knows for what danger it can bring to all of us Despite of all the help and improvements that modernization has brought us, it is still gives me a sense of threat knowing that what we may†¦show more content†¦It even helps me develop my social being. And look at today’s generation, they were all stuck in an technological environment, where in they are all freeze in front of their computers, laptops, tablets and many more. They didn’t even have a chance to socialize with the real world outside their house. So, the result, they were not able to expand sociological factors which are an important part of growing up. It limits their social life to things in front of them, and it’s not good. People are social being, and it’s not just enough to socialize online. And last, technology brought threats to our environment. E-waste or electronic waste is now gaining its popularity because it is widely spread nowadays. These are the waste that technology has brought us, form chips to cell phone batteries and even the phone itself. Because some are cannot be recycled, they were just thrown everywhere. And unlike any other waste, it cannot be decomposed and the worst part is, it’s not just a simple waste, for all these carries a chemical that can be harmful to people around. Look at our atmosphere; it’s now becoming dark due to the widespread of air pollution. Factories that eject harmful fumes are the number one contributor to this pollution. And technology brought all these up. Technology may sound good. Modernization could help us, but let’s not deny the fact that it has something in return. That someday we will able toShow MoreRelatedAn Age Of Inclusion : The Silent Movie Era903 Words   |  4 Pagesimpact. Like any historical period, there is a documented rise, golden age, and downfall of the silent movie era. By researching a span of roughly thirty years, we will document, question, analyze, and evaluate the impact of silent movies on the Deaf community in terms of employment, recreation, society, and historical ramifications during and as a result of the silent movie era. The Early 1900s During the start of the nineteenth century, technology began merging with art and formed the film industry.Read MoreSocial Networking Good or Bad?964 Words   |  4 PagesSocial Networking: Good or bad? 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