Using the principles of performance appraisal, and based on the information in the outside sources, prepare a paper that presents your studied viewpoint on teacher job appraisal and compensation.

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The tension between theoretical criteria and actual criteria can be seen acutely in the debate surrounding teacher performance appraisal. Student success is not part of the teacher’s job description, yet it is an actual outcome criterion that many lawmakers and citizens believe is implied in the teacher’s role. In this assignment you will use your critical thinking skills to analyze the debate on this issue.

Consider this fictional scenario: As an expert in I/O psychology, you have been invited to give a presentation at your State Senate hearings regarding teacher appraisal and accountability. Lawmakers are considering a bill which directly ties teacher compensation and retention to student grades on standardized tests. Using the principles of performance appraisal, and based on the information in the outside sources, prepare a paper that presents your studied viewpoint on teacher job appraisal and compensation. Include suggestions for training that might help teachers meet the theoretical and/or actual criteria that you argued for in you presentation. increase teacher performance on both theoretical and actual criteria.

What five personality traits does differential psychology focus on identifying? Is it important for managers to understand their employees’ differences? Why or why not?

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Leslie Snow manages a team of five help desk operators. The cubicles of the operators are located a floor below Leslie’s office. Each operator is required to log help desk calls into a team database. This database tracks the nature of a problem, the length of the call, and whether the problem was fixed or sent to the engineering department for further investigation.

Leslie has a busy schedule, and it is not possible for her to monitor the performance of her team members sitting on a different floor. Therefore she decides to assess their performance solely on the basis of reports queried from the database.

What five personality traits does differential psychology focus on identifying? Is it important for managers to understand their employees’ differences? Why or why not? Explain your viewpoint by giving a minimum of two specific examples. 

Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper discussing the influences on physical and cognitive development.

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Developmental psychology seeks to address various aspects of human development, including physical, cognitive, social, moral, and personality development.

Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper discussing the influences on physical and cognitive development.

Select one of the stages of development below as the focus of your paper.

  • Infancy: from birth to 1 year
  • Early childhood: from 1-6 years
  • Middle childhood: from 6-12 years
  • Adolescence: from 12-18 years
  • Early adulthood: from 18-40 years
  • Middle adulthood: from 40-60 years
  • Late adulthood: from 60+ years

Address the following in relation to the selected stage:

  • What factors affect physical development? Consider hereditary and environmental influences. Provide examples.
  • What factors affect cognitive development? Consider hereditary and environmental influences. Provide examples.
  • What factors affect social, moral, and personality development? Describe the factors by explaining at least two theoretical perspectives associated with social, moral, and personality development.

Include at least two peer-reviewed sources.

Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.

What are some possible challenges facing the social workers in pursing their change agenda?

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Organizational Practice in Social Work – Assessment 2

Assessment Task 2: worth 40%, length 1800 words.
Scenario:
You are one of several social workers working in a hypothetical state-government community health centre in a city (population 95 000) in central New South Wales. The centre provides multi-disciplinary services (including nursing, home care, occupational therapy, psychology and physiotherapy) to a wide range of clients, including people with drug and alcohol problems, people with mental health needs and people with disabilities (including assessment of children with suspected development delay) .
Some recent cases presented by allied health staff at case conferences have indirectly involved children. You and your social work colleagues are concerned that child welfare issues are not being fully considered. (One of the cases was where a parent�s depression was identified as impacting on her ability to care for her daughter. It had been agreed with Human Services: Community Services (DoCS) that she would receive counselling from the
psychologist, however when she repeatedly did not turn up for sessions, DoCS was not informed.) Your impression is that there is not a good understanding of child and family welfare issues and ways of dealing with them amongst many of your non-social work colleagues.
The social workers meet to discuss this issue. Amongst other things they are concerned about how the centre will respond to proposed state government changes which will mean responsibility for child protection will be shared by health and human services staff in all government agencies, not just DoCs. Going on past experience the social workers are worried that the Local Health District management will simply impose a structure and processes for dealing with child welfare issues. They are concerned that the new arrangements may not be the best for children and families and also that implementation could be problematic because staff may not be appropriately trained.
The social workers consider a range of strategies to address the problem. They think it is important that there be a multi-disciplinary staff working party to plan and implement new arrangements. One essential task would be to conduct a file audit of all cases over the past two years to identify those where clients had children, or where children and young people were themselves clients, to map the child and family welfare issues and how they were responded to by staff (including liaison with DoCS and other support services in the community).

Tasks:
Write an assignment, responding to the scenario above and drawing on relevant literature. The assignment is broadly about organizational change, although within this there is a choice of addressing a specific aspect of organizational practice that can be used to facilitate change. Although it is recognized that there may be some overlap, please select one aspect to focus on.

You should include an introduction and a conclusion to the paper and ensure that the following questions are addressed:

What are some possible challenges facing the social workers in pursing their change agenda?

Focus on one of the following aspects of organizational practice, apply it to the scenario and discuss how it could be used to assist the social workers efforts:

Overcoming obstacles and resistance to change, OR
Leadership, OR
Interagency and/or interdisciplinary collaboration.

This assignment addresses all three course learning outcomes in that it asks students to consider the issue of organizational change, particularly the application in practice of theory and knowledge about facilitating organizational change, in an hypothetical human services organization.