Crestwood School – Education and Science

The future of a company or institution depends on the performance of their employees and students. Education professionals always come up with new ideas to improve overall performance of students and institutions. These ideas are implemented in the form of new techniques and learning aids in teaching. This information given to the student not only helps them, but also helps the institution to maintain a good track record.

What Is Six Sigma?

A technique to achieve strategic business results, Six Sigma is a customer-based approach, which shows that neglecting defects can turn out very expensive for the company or institution. The fewer risks a company is exposed to, the lesser the possibilities of losing customers.

Origin Of Six Sigma

In the 1980′s, under threat from its Japanese counterpart, Motorola came up with a concept to counter the situation. The success of this concept is witnessed in the profit and expansion of companies like General Electric (GE) and Allied Signal.

Culture And Techniques Used In Six Sigma

Culture may be very unnecessary, but by merely changing it, companies can be very successful. This culture includes not just the Quality Leaders, Black Belts and Green Belts, but everyone in the company. After following a process of identifying the problem in a process and charting out the course to address it, the process is evaluated and worked upon.

By reducing the number of defects from a process to 3.4 defectives per million, Six Sigma raises the level of customer satisfaction. In companies, everyone strives to achieve targets by introducing a change in their work environment and way of functioning.

Education And Six Sigma

Six Sigma is the appropriate tool where quality management is concerned. In an educational setting, teachers are the work force and parents are the customers.
The latter tend to pay the fees and expect their wards to get good and qualitative results. By improving teaching techniques, teachers expect a positive change in the performance of their students. This change is expected to last for a stipulated time for the acquired profit to remain constant.

Six Sigma Implementation

The first step before the implementation is to recognize the problem and define a project to lessen or completely eradicate the problem. These projects are led by the Green Belts and assisted by the Black Belts. Using a DMAIC (Define. Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) theory the following steps are taken

Starting from the senior most level, basic six sigma principles are taught. This creates an environment for innovation and creativity. Thereafter, a module is developed in order to establish a close communication between teachers and students. This module involves preparing a method to obtain and evaluate everyone’s input. In educational settings, teachers help in building a data by conducting a study.

Conclusion

By applying Six Sigma to education, a positive change in teaching methods and a consequential positive result is bound to happen. Proper education paves the way for qualitative learning for everyone. By implementing the right techniques, the road ahead would be smooth enough to reach the desired goals.

Fashion designer school is for people that have a passion or extreme interest in all things fashion. While putting together great outfits for friends has always been something you’ve liked to do on the side, you can do it for a living. Creating clothing and accessory designs just comes naturally to some people, and when you attend classes to really refine your skills you’ll be impressed not only with how much you can learn, but how much you can be paid to do the things that you love to do! While designing clothes and even putting together patterns and outfits for yourself and your friends may be a great hobby, it can be an even better job if you go to school and learn how to do it all the right way so that you can come across creative and professional to prospective clients.

Fashion designers will be taught to sketch their ideas, draw and cut patterns, create simple garments, fit and modify finished garments, arrange showings for press as well as buyers, compare merchandise to that of competitors, learn how to keep current, and how to visit textile showrooms when they attend fashion design school. These skills will all contribute to helping someone with a passion for fashion develop their skill and utilize it in the real world.

Most fashion designers are self-employed and simply design for individual clients. Designers become popular by setting themselves apart by being professional, reliable, and using different colors, shapes, and materials that will allow them to stand out among their competition. A great way to learn how to create your own methods of creating great clothing, accessories, or jewelry is to become a designer’s assistant. Helping a designer will not only allow those that are learning to see what goes into the business, but will also help them define a sense of self and a true sense of what they want to do in the fashion business.

Some fashion designers work for larger firms and this may be a great way to get a fashion designer education when you get out of fashion designer school, as well. These firms or corporations typically have a head designer, which is responsible for most of the creative aspects and supervision of the design room staff. Assistant designers are often hired by firms and often make the first patterns and help the head designer oversee creative and personnel issues. There are also specialty designers that may be hired by corporations that will work with other designers to help create limited or special lines of clothing. Special designers will often have a specific article of clothing or accessory that they work with and often they design for a specific market or country and can play a vital role in a large design company. There are also theatrical costume designers that create costumes or articles of clothing and accessories for plays, movies, or other theatrical productions and these designers may work on contract. Of course, all of these jobs can be done independent of a firm, but some individuals find these jobs easier to get through a firm first, for a more consistent income.

The work environment for every designer varies, as some work in very professional settings while others work in very cramped and rushed environments. If you work for yourself you can really set the standard for yourself so that you do not have to work in unfavorable situations. If you are looking at working for a firm, be sure to ask hard questions about the work environment and schedule. Just because you just graduated from fashion designer school doesn’t mean that you should be subjected to less than comfortable working conditions! Freelance fashion designer work can also be done outside of your own job so that you can slowly create your own client base away from your corporate job.

There is a lot of money to be made by fashion designers once they have graduated and obtained some experience. Many designers make more than $20 an hour and the average salary for a designer is more than $57,000 a year! Of course, education, experience, licensing and a grasp of trends and professionalism are what get you to such a salary, but after attending fashion designer school you can achieve all of these things. Remember that you may not start out at the top, but when you get there all the little jobs you have worked will seem more than worth it so get your fashion designer education now.

Massage therapy continuing education is very important in the professional field of a Massage Therapist. Once you have your degree or certificate in massage therapy, you must continue your education periodically with certified classes designed to increase your knowledge about the body and it’s muscles. There are many different classes to choose from to further advance your career as a massage therapist. Classes you may consider taking include but are not limited to are: Connective Tissue Manipulation, Craniosacral therapy, medical advancement therapy, traditional Thailand massage, and Tui-Na.

Connective Tissue Manipulation is a very important part of massage continuing education. Connective Tissue Manipulation is the study of fibrous tissue. Craniosacral therapy, also important is the study of working with the spine and the skull of a person. There are techniques that you will learn as you further your education that will help to alleviate many problems for people and help you have a better understanding as these systems work together.

Medical advancement therapy is very important especially if you choose to work in a doctor or chiropractor’s office. This is all about the doctor and therapy working together to benefit the patient. Traditional Thailand massage which is the pulling and manipulation of muscles. Finally, Tui-Na is a western alternative technique using two hands to push and manipulate muscles.

Additional programs you may find helpful would be an aromatherapy certificate. Aromatherapy works together with massage, treating the whole body. Advancements in therapy for laboring mothers also is another option of massage therapy continuing education. It is becoming more popular each day for mothers to find alternative routes for labor and delivery of their babies, with massage therapy being a very beneficial treatment for them.

There are many more programs for massage continuing education. It is important that as a Massage Therapist you continue to advance your education to keep up with the latest techniques. Each day you further your knowledge can only make you a better well rounded massage therapist. As we continue to learn more about our bodies and the benefits of massage as a whole and while working with traditional medicine, we can set out to help our patients with the best knowledge.

Many of these massage therapy continuing education programs can be done in as little time as a weekend seminar. Education programs are aware of how busy our schedules already are and they do as much as possible to create school schedules that will allow you to find the time to continue your quest of knowledge.

Louis Zhang, Accrmassagetherapycourses.com

The future of higher education in the UK is destined to look quite different in comparison to how it does today. As education online gradually follows the footsteps of the USA and grows in popularity with full and part-time UK students, others are seeking to establish an open content higher education service that might eventually result in a high quality University of Europe. So what can we learn from the education system of Finland?

The reason for this short analysis of the Finnish education system came in the form of an article concerning Nokia in The Dallas Morning News today (February 9th). It seems that the mobile phone giant has established a headquarters at Espoo, not far from Helsinki, in an clever attempt to benefit from a higher education system that is, “skewed toward getting a master’s degree…It gives us conceptually strong students with a wealth of theory, specialization and a capacity to learn – the one real gem that this system gives better than any other I have seen.” (Heikki Norta.)

In fact, the Finnish education system has long been noted for the incredible proficiency of its students. In 2004, the BBC reported of the publication of findings by the Programme for International Student Assessment; Finland came top for overall mathematics proficiency, as well as achieving the best mean reading and science scores – ahead of Korea, Hong-Kong, and the Netherlands.

One of the key differences with Finnish education is the fact that after primary education, students are then allowed to focus on traditionally separate vocational (Trade School) or academic studies (Upper Secondary School). After students complete their secondary schooling, those from tertiary education are expected to enter the workplace, whilst those following the academic route are essentially taught in preparation for the certainty of higher or tertiary education.

Unlike the UK and USA, the Finnish education system causes the majority of its students to enroll in courses in quite different subjects such as engineering, computer science, and maths, whereas here and stateside, English, Graphics, and Media thrive pushing students to an already-saturated workplace. Simply, Finnish student are preparing themselves for jobs that are yet to be available. Conclusively, the success of a system such as this means that an open content University of Europe scenario will only be a good thing for the UK, presuming that the fins want to get involved.

The online education market is increasing by “33% a year” according to Salary.com . This expansion is due to the many opportunities that the Internet affords. Earning a degree was once a pipe dream for the stay at home mom with 3 kids or the rural farm worker, but a degree is now available to anyone with an Internet connection. With this increased access also comes increased risk, with so many colleges offering online degree programs there are also just as many crooks offering you quick and easy programs that take your money and leave you with nothing of value. Choosing the right degree program can open new doors, increase your income or just allow you to fulfill a lifelong dream. How do you avoid the crooks and what will an online degree be worth when you have completed it?

If it seems to good to be true it probably is. Most of the scams can be broken in to two categories; the “Degree Mills” and “This is way to easy to be college”. The Degree Mill is very simple, you send them some exorbitant amount of money and they mail you a very nice official looking piece of paper with your name on it that say you have a degree. Degree mills are worthless. You receive no education from them. Do not go looking to just buy a degree, you need to earn it. The other scam is what I call “This is way to easy to be college”. You may have seen spam email from these so called colleges. They generally advertise earning a degree in some radically quick time frame (6 months) or only taking a small number of classes. If you were to go to one of these schools they still require some exorbitant fee for what you learn and the classes require little or no work/study. In the end your degree may still be worthless. So how do you choose a degree program that will be worth something?

When choosing an online degree program make sure it is accredited by a sanctioned agency. Accreditation helps ensure that the curriculum and the instructors are of high caliber and afford you the best learning opportunity. Accreditation also add more vale to your degree in the eyes of employers and if you wanted to use that degree as a stepping stone you next degree. You still need to be cautious all Accreditations are not equal you should make sure accreditation agency is recognized. Who are the recognizers? “Washington, D.C.-based Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), a private nonprofit national organization, and the U.S. Department of Education (USDE)” From jobs.aol.com

When researching about an online program U.S News & World Report suggest the following :

Don’t limit your research to classified ads or survey the Web in search of the right course or program.

See if the online school is accredited and by whom. Check to see if the accrediting agency is officially sanctioned. Lists are available from several accrediting organizations.

Check with licensing boards and professional associations to see if the program delivers an acceptable level of training.

Call or write the Better Business Bureau and the attorney general’s office to make sure the school is operating legally in a state and to see if anyone has filed a complaint.

Find out if the school is connected to an established, reputable parent company.

If you intend to transfer any online credits earned to another college or university, early on check with that institution to see if they accept those credits.

Ask about the faculty? Who teaches the courses? What degrees do they have? What is their area of expertise?

Refer to the published guides of online, correspondence and other distance delivered courses.

What value will your online degree have? The value of an online degree depends on a person’s particular situation. The greatest value will depends on how you will use the degree. According to Howstuffoworks.com industries like Internet/New Media, Technology, and High Tech are the highest supporters of an online degree. While an online degree holds the least value in Medicine, Law, and Health Care/Bio Tech industries. Even tho “Thomas L. Russell of North Carolina State University, did studies that revealed that there is little if any difference in the quality of education received through online distance learning versus traditional classrooms.” – Howstuffworks.com

With this mixed result; an online degree is still a great option for those that have little other choices or those who just don’t like traditional classrooms.

For example: “The cost benefit of online programs lies mainly in the opportunity costs saved, as most students are able to keep their jobs while taking online classes.” – Salary.com

“Tonya Gordon ended up with her dream job, doubled her salary, and feels challenged and fulfilled every day. This all happened within a few months of receiving her MBA online through Texas Woman’s University (Denton, Texas)” – jobs.aol.com

Without a doubt the popularity of online degrees is exploding. The mass adoption of this form of learning will cause the less accepting industries to value the online degree equal to a traditional degree. The online degree requires the student to be more aware of the school and degree they choose to ensure that it will have value to them. Online accredited degrees have value and will improve your marketability in the job market and can increase your salary range.

Works Cited

Kneram, Caitlin. “The Value of Online Learning.”

Salary.com

May 5th, 2007

Tellefsen, Robyn. “Will Your Degree Have Value?”

jobs.aol.com

May 5th, 2007

Obringer, Lee Ann. “How online degrees work.”

Howstuffworks.com

May 5th, 2007

Mannix, Margaret. “Buyers, Be wary. Choosing Reputable Distance Learning Programs.” U.S News & World Report, October 15, 2001, p68.

Due to the constantly changing nature of their profession, CPAs must constantly keep themselves abreast of the latest development in their field. Irrespective of if the changes are in the form of new laws that are brought in or old laws that were amended to reflect changes, pleading ignorance is not an option for CPAs.

There are numerous fields that the CPA has to keep himself informed about. These range from taxation to finance and business to planning and advisory rules. Keeping up with such a lot of information can get quite tiresome after a period of time. However, if the CPA wishes to climb up the ladder of success, continuing education is the key.

There are numerous educational and other institutions that offer ongoing professional courses tailored made for CPAs. Some of these institutions are non-profit centers.

Once a person has obtained his professional CPA license, most states make it a mandatory requirement that he take specified amounts of continuing professional education courses annually to retain that professional license. This ensures that the CPA has to take a certain number of hours from his often busy schedule and devote them to studying some professional course.

These continuing education programs can also take the form of official conferences and seminars that award a certain number of credits for the number of hours attended. These seminars and conferences often invite renowned speakers who share their knowledge with the audience of CPAs.

A lot of institutions also allow you to continue your professional education from home by allowing you to do study online. All you study and course material, tests, and projects are all sent to you through the Internet. All you have to do is download them at your place of convenience and study.

A lot of institutions also offer Webcasts, which are videos (sometimes Webcast live) of actual classroom teaching taught by an instructor.

There is an increasing amount of English language learners represented in our schools for whom a unique approach to developing literacy is necessary. The development of literacy by English language learners (ELLs) includes all of the challenges implicit for English speaking children literacy attainments, and is additionally compounded by a diversity of linguistic, cognitive and academic variables.

In general, the following are critical variables that need to be targeted in effective reading instruction:

Phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency, including oral reading skills, and reading comprehension strategies. The National Research Council’s Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children recently completed the most authoritative, comprehensive review of the research on normal reading development and instruction and on preventing reading difficulties in young children1. This study documented a number of important findings about teaching English reading to language-minority children. These include:

- English-speaking children making initial attempts at reading understand, if they are successful, the products of their efforts; they read words they know and sentences they understand, and…can self-correct efficiently. Non-English speakers have a more limited basis for knowing whether their reading is correct because the crucial meaning-making process is short circuited by lack of language knowledge.

- Giving a child initial reading instruction in a language that he or she does not yet speak can undermine the child’s chance to see literacy as a powerful form of communication by knocking the support of meaning out from underneath the process of learning.

- Initial reading instruction in the first language does no harm. To the contrary, it seems likely both from research findings and from theories about literacy development that initial reading instruction in the second language can have negative consequences for immediate and long-term achievement. Primary language and reading literacy is critical and should be strongly encouraged.

It was highly recommended that “initial literacy instruction in a child’s native language whenever possible” and suggested that “literacy instruction should not be introduced in any language before some reasonable level of oral proficiency in that language has been attained.”

On the question of which language to use when teaching English language learners to read, the committee recommended the following guidelines:

- If language minority children arrive at school with no proficiency in English but speaking a language for which there are instructional guides, learning materials, and locally available proficient teachers, then these children should be taught how to read in their native language while acquiring proficiency in spoken English, and then subsequently taught to extend their skills to reading in English.

- If these second language children arrive at school with no proficiency in English but speak a language for which the above conditions cannot be met and for which there are insufficient numbers of children to justify the development of the local community to meet such conditions, the instructional priority should be to develop the children’s proficiency in spoken English. Although print materials may be used to develop understanding of English speech sounds, vocabulary, and syntax, the postponement of formal reading instruction is appropriate until an adequate level of proficiency in spoken English has been achieved. In other words, the instructional priority need to be to develop spoken oral English prior to attempting to facilitate reading in English.

This author has used this approach with many second language children and has developed effective methods to facilitate literacy in English language learners based on these recommendations which have been associated with high levels of efficacy.

We all find ourselves in need of help from time to time and it is a big relief when we are assisted. In this world that we live in, in order to make life easier and more meaningful we must learn to help others and teach others this golden principle which can lead a harmonious society.

So what are the teachings regarding helping others? The points below will try to explain this concept that you can use to explain to others:

1) Whenever you can, help others who may need your support. Do not treat it as a favour on them, and do not expect any rewards for your gesture. This can save you from bitter feelings if the person you helped does not show much of an appreciation.

2) We live in a world in which we are all directly or indirectly dependent on each other. To keep this connection intact and strong, we must step up to offer a hand when the need arises. You will inevitably also need help some day so it is a good thing to help others.

3) Do not think of what others will say when you help someone in an awkward situation, you are doing something good and that is what matters not the sarcastic or hurtful remarks of others. They do not have it in them to help so they will try to discourage anyone who does.

4) Remind people occasionally about the need to have humane feelings towards the deprived and less fortunate. Society will be a much better place if we all played our part regarding the welfare of those who struggle to make it through their days. Little, kind gestures go a long way to alleviate peoples’ suffering and bring hope to them.

It is not a difficult task helping others, you just have to be willing and considerate. There are many opportunities wherever you may be. Just keep your eyes and heart open for any signs of someone in need. It could be someone close to you or even someone you do not know well.

There are many organizations that offer accredited, Free Continuing Education courses through their websites. These are mostly demo or pre-registration versions. Registration in these sites is free. Once the aspirant registers, the website sends the password by email. This password can be used to access all info, such as the list of courses available, cost and number of hours allotted for each course, and FAQs.

For instance, http://www.nursingmatters.com hosts one pre-registration, free course every month. For November it is a 1-hour course on `Pediatric Psychopharmacology’.

The range of programs offered by these sites is astoundingly broad and include topics such as the following: Age-Specific Considerations in Patient Care, An Overview of Alzheimer’s Disease, Breastfeeding: The Basics, ECG Interpretation: Learning the Basics, Ecstasy: Under the Influence, Latex Allergy: More Than Skin Deep, Perspectives on Childhood Poisoning, Performance Improvement: A Change for the Better, and What’s up at the Joint? New Tracer Methodology. While most courses are of 1 or 2 hours’ duration, some may go up to 8 hours or more depending upon the topic concerned.

Many of these courses use multimedia and communicational platforms such as interactivity, voicemail, video conferencing and more. They also incorporate highly interactive seminars and assessment sessions. At the end of any course, the end user can take an assessment test and get his performance evaluated instantly. All these can be done at any time that is convenient to the end user.

Several Continuing Education organizations offer free courses to nurses, particularly in times of human need. One such course is `Hurricane Katrina: Preventing Infectious Diseases’, a 1.5-hour course offered by Wild Iris Medical Education, as advertised in their website http://www.nursingceu.com. Such courses can be a boon to the community.

In Malaysia our education systems is base on English education systems. The education started from kindergarten until high level education. The first education level is kindergarten to enter children must be on the age 4 to 6 years old. After attending kindergarten this children will be going to primary school. They will attend primary school until they reach 12 years old.

Primary school started from year 1 to year 6. Year 1 is when they reach 7 years old and year 6 is when they reach 12 years old. When they in year 6 they will be going through a civil exam call “UPSR”. Ujian Penilaian sekolah rendah(UPSR) or in English we could say primary school assessment test. After sitting this test then they will advance to Middle school.

This middle school can separate into two part which is the first part is lover middle school age 13 to 15 (form 1 to form 3) and the other part is upper middle school age 16 to 17 (form 4 to form 5). In the end off form 3 they will sit on exam call PMR (Penilaian Menengah Rendah) or in English we call lover middle school assessment before they can further their study to upper middle school. In the end of middle school they will sit on the most crucial exam before they can further their study to University or College. This Exam call SPM (Sijil Peperiksan Malaysia) or in english we call it Malaysian Exam Certificate. if they do well in this exam they will advance to high level education such as university or college. If they don’t do well on the exam there is still a chance to further their study. They can enter Lover 6 and after that Upper 6. In the end of upper six they will sit on a exam once again call STPM(Sijil Tinggi Peperiksaan Malaysia) or in english we call Malaysia High Certificate Exam. This STPM is almost the same standard as Diploma. If they have a good result they can further their studies to take bachelor from University.

From “SPM” if they want to take bachelor from University the have two different ways. One is to take the diploma from any college or the second ways is to study in matriculation first. Matriculation is la pre-university. they have to be and attend course for two year but not like go to college because college have to finish 3 years of study before can enter bachelor course. But there is Pro an Con when u take matriculation if u fail u cannot retake the matriculation u have to go to college if u want to futher your study. Although College is longer from matriculation but it is safer than matriculation. Matriculation doesn’t have any certificate if u pass the exam they just receive a slip that show that they pass matriculation and can further their study. This slip cannot be use to find a job it is useless if they don’t finish their bachelor. But if they go to college they will receive a Diploma then can be use to find job if they don’t want to further their study. That is a little bit of information about education in Malaysia.