Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: National/Federal Level

One organization that is appealing to me is the National Education Association (NEA).  “They believe it is a common sense investment we cannot afford to pass up” (NEA).  They are devoted to refining early childhood education and I believe they can provide great insight and resources to helping my challenge of figuring out ways to bring aboard high-quality teachers within the preschool level so that these children are getting the necessary knowledge to move into grade school.  There are many job opportunities within the National Education Association.  “NEA’s 3 million members work at every level of education , from pre-school to university graduate programs and has affiliate organizations in every state and in more than 14,000 communities across the United States” (NEA).  I saw a Manager D position that looks of interest to me.  For this position, the minimum education is a bachelor’s as well as a minimum of 10 years professional lobbying and political action organizing experience.  Experience must include political campaign work, grassroots organizing, as well as project and crisis management.

Another organization that is attractive to me is the Division for Early Childhood (DEC).  I chose this organization because they are for helping develop young children who may possibly have developing interruptions and disabilities.  “DEC is an international membership organization for those who work with or on behalf of young children (0-8) with disabilities and other special needs and their families” (Division for Early Childhood).  A job that interests me within this organization is an Early Childhood Education Instructor (full time).  For this position it is required to have a bachelor’s or masters in child development or early childhood education with sensitivity to and understanding of the diverse academic, socioeconomic, cultural, disability, and ethnic backgrounds of community college students.  The skills needed are having classroom responsibility, understanding of evaluating students, and understanding of curriculum knowledge, and student advising.

A third organization that is of interest to me is WestEd.  “A nonprofit research and development agency working at the national, state, and local levels, WestEd aims to improve education and other important outcomes for children, youth and adults” (WestEd, 2011).  Any organization that is about the improvement of education and enlightening the future of all, grasps my attention faithfully.  One job that I found of interest with in the WestEd organization is an Associate Program Director.  For this position I would need to possess the skills of writing proposals, manage work and have the technical skills that make the work better.  I must be able to motivate and manage project teams involved in research and consulting work on assessment methods and systems.  This would actually be a dream job for me being that they are looking for someone with tons of experience with this job being so complex.

References

National Education Association.  (n.d.).  Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/home/18163.htm

The Division for Early Childhood.  (n.d.).  Retrieved from http://www.dec-sped.org

WestEd.  (2011).  Retrieved from http://www.wested.org/cs/we/print/docs/we/home.htm

Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

           Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor; a tribe learning to survive, a band of artists seeking new forms of expression, a group of engineers working on similar problems, a clique of pupils defining their identity in the school, a network of surgeons exploring novel techniques, a gathering of first-time managers helping each other cope (Wenger, 2006).  One organization that is appealing to me is Habitat for Humanity.  They believe in providing everyone in need a decent place to live and bring people together to build homes, communities and hope.  A job opportunity I would be interested in for Habitat would be a (Supervisor-Volunteer Mobilization).  For this position I would need to have great oral/written communication/presentation skills as well as organizational and planning skills.  This position is responsible for developing, and engaging in and managing aspects of departmental initiatives and projects that contribute to continuous improvement of the department’s goals and objectives. 

            Another organization I would look to is the National Center for Children in Poverty [NCCP].  I love that they are one of the country’s top open policy center committed to supporting the economic security, condition, and goodness of America’s low-income families and children.  A great job opportunity that is of interest to me is a Project Coordinator.  This position will play a significant role in managing two new research and communications projects led by the Family Economic Security (FES) unit.  The responsibilities are managing day-to-day project operations, coordinate conference calls, meetings and trainings with project partners, and participate in developing focus group screening tools and protocols. 

            A third organization that is appealing to me is Care.  This is an organization out to supply people in the worst communities.  I like that they collaborate with different businesses and groups to more resourcefully assist people in need.  A job position that interests me from this organization is the director of development prospect management.  This position serves as the organizational expert on supporting and training major gift officers to effectively use the prospect management systems and tools at their disposal; interprets and monitors prospect management policies.  The qualifications for the job is to have an undergraduate degree plus 5 years experience working with a complex fund raising organization including the coordination of a prospect management system, directing activities toward prospect identification, and database coordination. 

Reference

Wenger, E. (2006).  Communities of practice: A brief introduction.  Retrieved from

            http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

A special thanks to my colleagues

This class has been a great learning source on communication and how important it is in our lives.  I have never thought about communication in-depth as much as we have in this course but I must say it was very valuable.  The amount of communication we will endure throughout not only our social lives but our professional lives will cause for us to be as effective as we can be to ensure our colleagues, students and their parents can understand our thoughts.  We will be collaborating a lot and this course has brought us several communication skills to help us in our future sessions.  Thanks for all who commented on my posts and allowed me to do the same.  We will help each other grow strong which will allow Education in general to be just as effective in the long run.

Teamwork and Communication

The group I felt was hardest to say good-bye to was my collaborating student-teaching group.  High-performing groups to me are hardest to leave because of hw well the communication is among the group.  We bonded so well together, establishing great communication in getting to know each other during our first group session.  I think we did a wonderful job forming our identity, establishing who the group leader would be and setting reachable goals.  As professional educators we understood how important group communication is because in this profession there will be tons of collaboration moments among other educators as well as board members and families.  For groups whose project or task come to an end, there is an adjourning stage (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012, pp. 257).  The groups I have encountered with in my master’s program adjourned by simply saying thank you and good-bye as well as complimenting from great ideas.  A simple thank you goes a long way for people and establishes great partnership down the line.

Adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork because it establishes whether or not a team wants to reassemble.  The group members reflect on their accomplishments and failures as well as determine whether the group will disassemble or take on another project (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012, pp. 258).  Depending on the distance between the group members will determine how they can adjourn.  A nice barbeque or sit down dinner would be nice to reflect on how well the group communicated, which can lead to bonding friendships and encores for the future.  If I feel the group was a disaster, this is the time period to let it be known that this team should not come together for another project.

                                                                         

Reference

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012).  Real Communication.  New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.

             Chapter 9, "Communication in Groups" (pp. 251-279).

Dealing with Conflicts

In life we will some time or another engage in conflict with others.  The key is to manage the situation productively.  Conflict that is managed effectively is called productive conflict (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012, pp.221).  It is perfectly fine to disagree with another person because we all have our own thought process so at times there will be some conflicts of issues.  At my current job one of the counselors seem to always bump heads with me.  We can never seem to agree with each other on any subject matter.   Something I have learned from this week that my co-worker and I can work on is to compromise with each other in conflictive situations.  With most compromises, both sides give up a little to gain a little (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012, pp.241).  We have to be willing to trade some of our needs to gain interest from our counterpart.  Another great strategy to use is probing, asking questions that encourage specific and precise answers (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012, pp.240).  In order for me to obtain information from another individual, I must ask for it.  Whenever we make requests for information, we are using the skill of Probing.  Probing can help parties explore the pros and cons of an issue, encouraging either side to consider both the positive and the negative aspects of it (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012, pp.240).  This is how great feedback and constructive criticism can be properly used.

Reference

O’Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012).  Real Communication.  New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

            Chapter 8, “Managing Conflict in Relationships” (pp. 219-246).

Evaluation Comparison

I really enjoyed this week’s assignments because it gave us the opportunity to not only evaluate ourselves on our communication but also to allow other perspective’s from a friend, family, or colleague.  The two people I chose to evaluate me seemed to know me very well.  I honestly believed they were going to be all over the place, especially pertaining to my communication skills.  What I perceived of myself and what they perceived through evaluation went hand in hand.  I am a much laid back person who would rather listen than speak.  Not to say that I do not speak well because my verbal communication is pretty good to my knowledge, I just listen well.  I think what surprised me the most is how accurate both evaluations came to be.  I figured they would be all over the place with their viewpoints of me but I was wrong.  My fiancé told me she knew me more than I know myself and I had to give her the thumbs up because she was accurate.

           This week I was able to understand how moderate my verbal aggressiveness is pertaining to my communication.  We are all different in our own unique ways, especially when communicating with others.  I found that I am very respectful and considerate of other people’s viewpoints.  After taking the listening profile assessment I fell in group 1 which makes me a people-oriented individual.  I definitely agree with this because I do love to listen and I am very concerned with the emotions of others. 

Colleagues Cultural Diversity

Communicating with people who are different from you is something you likely do every day (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2011, pg. 86).  Even our family and friends are dissimilar in things we may know nothing about.  There are things I talk about with my friends that I do not speak about with say a family member.  Things we share amongst each other come about differently depending on the setting or group of people we are with.  Being motivated to establish positive relationships with others who are different from us is a key aspect of communicating in interculturally competent ways (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2011, pg. 107).  There are always going to be communicating differences, even amongst our friends and families.  On settings when I am just hanging out with the fellows, we communicate about sports, our relationship with the girlfriend or wife, and just silly things that we can all sit back and laugh about.

Three good strategies to help us communicate more effectively with people would be for starts to create an atmosphere of openness.  When speaking with an individual or in a group setting, avoid objects that create barriers such as desks or cubicle walls.  Try to sit in an open area, and elude loud places.  We should also find places where the conversation is doubtful to be disturbed.  Another great strategy is to be an active listener.  A great communicator never tries to dominate the conversation.  As communicators we should allow our listener to provide their thoughts and listen courteously.  A third good strategy could be to actively engage in conversation.  When we are communicating with someone else they can tell when our minds are in another stratosphere.  We must express honest concern for the subject matter and show complete attention.  The person or people we are communicating with need to know that we are involved in the discussion.  There needs to be good eye contact shown and good non-verbal signals such as shacking your head as if agreeing with the person or just showing great posture.     

Reference

Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (2011).  Interpersonal communication: Relating to

            others (6^th ed.).  Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.  Chapter 4, “Interpersonal Communication

and Diversity: Adapting to Others” (pp. 85-114)