Curriculum History of the United States Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Curriculum History of the United States - Essay Example tes formal education system experienced a relative period of stabilization that allowed institutions to come together under a common ideal (Zais 1976). Even as curriculum development began to gain structured form, initial developments occurred through the gradual accumulation of diverse subjects: mathematics was followed by an array of sciences, including botany, anatomy, physics, astronomy, and geology. Soon after this subjects for non-college bounds students were added, such as typewriting, woodworking, and metallurgy. However, the ultimate array of subjects remained haphazard, unlike the well-structured form it progressively attained. Recognizing the haphazard curriculum, in 1892 a famous committee was formed to help add structure to the loosely formed curriculum. The group was termed the Committee of Ten and was headed by the President of Harvard at the time – Charles Eliot. The committee understood that the unstructured format of the current education system was pernicious to societal development, so they set out to bring order to the chaos (Zais 1976). Eliot and the committee determined that the greatest means to accomplish this would be to have the curriculum adhere to the already established college structure and function solely to prepare students for higher education. As a result, the core courses that had come together immediately after the Civil War were kept and substantiated, yet the elements of the curriculum designed for students not college-bound was discarded as unnecessary. Historians and educational theorists regard this last point as especially relevant to the changing view of learners ov er time, as its underlining assumption was that these core courses, even if they didn’t target specific vocational aspects of the learner’s development, would have the ultimate benefit in preparing them intellectually for whatever task they undertook. Even as these earlier curriculum formulations considered the development of the human, it wasn’t

Leadership in project management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Leadership in project management - Essay Example A view holds that leaders are people oriented and their main task is to inspire people. Their primary functional output is a change(Veal,2004) and their capabilities are assessed in terms of controlling the process of this change. That is to mould and control change to suit project's objectives. Whereas managers are task and process oriented and their main task is to organize such tasks and processes. Management's main output is task done in target time at target cost. In plain language Management is assigned the task of producing and maintaining a degree of predictability & order(Veal,2004). Leadership on the other hand assumes the function of producing change under a constantly updated schemata of direction and vision. Leadership is the process of motivating others to work to meet specific goals and objectives. Leadership is deliberately causing people-driven actions in a planned fashion for the purpose of accomplishing the leader's agenda. Subsequent to identification of role of leadership in project management it is clear that leadership physically comprises of an individual or set of individuals acting on common concert and vision. A set of qualities are generally stated in support of good leadership. Such qualities helps in execution of the agenda of leadership as defined above. These qualities are stated below corresponding to their importance in an information system project: (a) A project leader must have the capability to nurture and develop a vision and a concrete sense of direction in which to lead the team on. He must make the entire team convinced of his stance of an inspired shared vision. At least he should be able to convey his vision to critical members of the project team. "Visionary leaders enable people to feel they have a real stake in the project. They empower people to experience the vision on their own(Barry,Top). Bennis explains about the leaders that "They offer people opportunities to create their own vision, to explore what the vision will mean to their jobs and lives, and to envision their future as part of the vision for the organization," (Bennis, 1997). (b) A project leader is expected to have high level of problem solving skills(Barry,Top). He may share problem-solving responsibilities with the team .As Kouzes says that a leader must have a "fresh, creative response to here-and-now opportunities," and not much concern with how others have performed them. (Kouzes,1987).Thus he would be capable of giving new solutions to complicated problems and lead in dead ends. (c) A project leader must exercise a lot of empathy. There is vast amount of difference between empathy and sympathy(Barry,Top). Although the words rhyme, they, in fact have widely different meanings. According to Norman Paul, in sympathy the subject is principally absorbed in his or her own feelings as they are projected into the object and has little concern for the reality