How We Launched 4 Features in 4 Weeks with a Culture of Shipping

How We Launched 4 Features in 4 Weeks with a Culture of Shipping Here at , we just completed a major sprint to launch four major new features in less than 6 weeks. Whew. It was a lot of fun. Were leaving 2016 BIGLY so that you can consolidate your toolset in 2017! Welcome our 4th NEW feature in 6 weeks: #Instagram Scheduling https://t.co/srhEwtJpin Garrett Moon (@garrett_moon) November 29, 2016 In case you missed it, here’s what we launched. If you only want to learn how we did it, feel free to skip ahead. Four Features In Under Six Weeks: ReQueue is the most intelligent way to automate your social media. This is one of my favorite features ever, because it helps you make the most of the hard work you put into social media schedule. Now, will help you reuse to best social messages again when it sees a gap in your schedule. It’s the perfect social companion for the busiest of marketers. Instagram has quickly become one of the most important social networks for marketers and now you can schedule Instagram messages right from , along side the rest of your marketing strategy. Instagram publishing really makes the one-stop tools for your entire marketing strategy. Content UX included a major update to how content is managed on the calendar. While it included a massive design refresh, it also added a lot of functional changes around usability and user experience that make easier to use and collaborate with you team. Social Media Analytics helps our users prove the ROI of the work they do by eliminate the tedious process of gathering, analyzing, and reporting on your analytics. Now you can do it from one place with ’s social message analytics and Social Engagement Reports. Long story short, that’s a lot of code to ship in short amount of time. So, how did we do it? How A Culture Of Shipping Drives Our Work EthicI call it a culture of shipping. Its one of our core values: Bias for Action. We know that ideas don’t matter unless they become action. We always err on the side of shipping, failing fast, and getting better as we go along. But before we get too far, I want to let you in on our dirty little secret. We don’t launch 100% of our features all at once. Don’t get me wrong, these were great features, but they were the 1.0 version. This means that for every aspect of the feature we actually launched, there are between 3 and 4 major improvements that were left on the to do list. In general, I believe that the common concept of a â€Å"launch† is very misleading. Most of the time, we think of a launch as a singular event. We slave away for months in hiding while building something brand new. When it finally comes time to make it public we launch, and make a big splash. There are blog posts, tweets, press releases, and sometimes fanfare. And then it’s over. We move on to the next project and look forward to another â€Å"big launch.† But, that’s not really how things work. Your audience will never absorb your launch the way you expect them to. They’re busy and distracted. You’re probably going to have to tell them about feature XYZ three or four times before they actually pay attention. In short, launches shouldn’t be a singular event. They are just the beginning. They should really be just one singular step in an overall process of iteration. Launches should be one singular step in an overall process of iterationIteration is really at the heart of what makes for a great â€Å"culture of shipping.† Everything is iterative, including your skills and abilities, your marketing efforts, and your feature launches. A process of getting something out there and then making slow and steady improvements over time is what defines ’s culture. It isn’t sexy, but dang it if it doesn’t work. So, let’s get practical. What can you do to make sure your team builds a culture of shipping? Here are a few of the things we do every day to keep the shipping alive. 1. Wins Make for More Wins When planning something new you are bound to develop big visions of excellence and grander. Take it easy cowboy/girl. Rather than trying to build the biggest and best right out of the gate, break your project into pieces. Think of it as a series of â€Å"launches† rather than one massive unveiling. Breaking projects down into tiny launch-able pieces will give you and your team some early wins. Wins can easily turn into momentum and momentum is exactly what fuels a culture of shipping. Around here, we like to break feature development into a series of 1-2 week projects- each one ending with a launch of some kind. We try not to focus on the whole enchilada. Rather, we focus on the smaller iterative goals that will need to be met in order to succeed. This ultra simple framework keeps us focused and motivated, and ultimately leads to the big win. Wins make for more wins.2. We Assume that Our Customers Know More Than Us When planning a new feature or launch, it can be easy to assume that you are the smartest person in the room. Work on a feature long enough and you’ll believe that no one understands it better than you. Unfortunately, you’ll probably be right. So, what if no one understands it but you? Feedback matters a lot. The world loves to emphasize the myth of the â€Å"lone genius† or the Steve Jobs personality in all of us. WRONG. There isn’t a such things as a lone genius in real life. In real life those geniuses had spouses, colleagues, or competitors that drove them and made them better. For a startup like , those drivers are our users. With every feature we launch, we try to leave a lot of room for customers to influence version 2.0. When a new feature goes live, our list of back burner items becomes irrelevant. From that point forward, customer feedback shapes version 2.0. There isn’t a such things as a lone genius in real life.3. We Focus on Failing Fast Most of us try to avoid making mistakes. If we can’t avoid them, we at least try to make sure no one notices them when they happen. But, this reflex is in itself a mistake. Instead, the better approach is to assume that you will fail and build it right into your process. We call this failing fast. Rather than trying to be perfect, aim to fail as quickly as possible. If you’re building something new, show it to someone else as soon as you can. Even before you’re ready. Get feedback. Figure out what’s wrong The sooner you know what’s wrong, the sooner you can improve it, and that will help you move faster. My background is in graphic design, and this can be a huge problem in that industry. Designers love to â€Å"move pixels† and make things perfect before showing their work to anyone. But, this is a mistake. It makes them slow and oftentimes damages the end result. Don’t assume you know it all. Assume that you will fail, and build it right into your process so that you know to expect it. Assume that you will fail, and build it right into your process so that you know to expect it.4. We Keep Things Simple Complicated features are bad for users (and for you). At , we’ve paid that price before. For example, the first version of ReQueue was overbuilt. Because we didn’t ship soon enough, the feature ended up getting too complicated and messy. When we gave it to a set of beta users and they were confused. They didn’t understand how to make the feature do what we said it could do. We ended up scrapping the entire project and building something different that was much simpler and more iterative. It was a lesson we don’t want to have to learn twice. Over time, we’ve learned to keep things as simple as possible. Sometime complex features are necessary, but it is better to iterate our way into them, rather than building it all at once. Stay iterative. Keep it simple. Ship on time! #aCultureOfShipping #OverheardAt5. Despite What You Believe, Launch Day Doesn’t Really Matter I’ve already mentioned that launch day barely matters, but it bears repeating. Teams routinely put a lot of time into their big unveiling to find out that no one was really paying attention. The true art of the launching comes from realizing that launching is a process, not an event. It’s about the process of shipping, not just launching. From a marketing standpoint this means that we should be talking about new features for week and months after they launch. From a product standpoint this means that we should be building and perfecting a feature for months after they are live. This isn’t a one and done type of scenario. We are so conditioned to believe that launch day is an event. We believe that our marketing is a narrative and that customers read every page, but they don’t. Marketing is messy. Shipping is messy. You’re better off with a process that embraces the mess than one that works against it.

Alroy Drawer Runners Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Alroy Drawer Runners - Essay Example Alroy is a leader in the manufacture of metal drawer runners that are utilized on furnishings, custom cabinetry and any other product requiring efficient and no-slip drawer slides, hence creating a plethora of opportunities for capturing disparate markets and prospects. What makes Alroy products unique is their durability in construction and powder-coated covering that improves anti-corrosion capabilities and longevity over that of competing drawer runner manufacturers worldwide. Alroy Sheet Metal’s customer is Heritage Home Group LLC, a multi-national organization specializing in manufacture, design, distribution and retailing of a variety of home furnishings. Heritage is a very high-end producer and marketer of top quality, premium home products under the respected and well-known brand names such as Thomasville, Lane, Broyhill, Pearson and Drexel Heritage. The customer maintains a very broad group of retail channels that include branded retail stores, collaboration with world-renowned interior design agents, mass merchant retailers, and independent retail stores across the world. The relationship between Alroy salespersons and Heritage Home Group is one that is justified through a consultative selling model. Salespersons, in order to add value to the relationship and engage the customer effectively, ask a variety of strategic questions, utilize active listening skills, and illustrate a legitimate care and concern for their problems and needs. Relationship development involves more interactivity with customers, face-to-face selling practices, in which productive communications between seller and customer are critical to establishing trust and perceptions of competency in the salesperson and the corporate brand.  

Being a Stepmother Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Being a Stepmother - Essay Example In the year 2001, my husband was in the process of getting sole custody of his two daughters and thus, since I had gotten married to him recently, I was going to be a part of a ‘package deal’. Today those two children are like a blessing in my life, they have helped me a great deal in learning a lot of things about life and gaining experiences. Sometimes however, I do wish that I was their real mother because it is a tough task to watch these children grow up with a ‘friend’ rather than with a mother or a guiding light in the true sense. Despite these adversities however, being a stepmother is a very difficult thing to do and to accomplish this task over time is an even tougher aspect of life. It was extremely sad to know that their mother abandoned them because no child wants to grow up to question why their mother left them; these children still have a void in their life which I have been trying to fill every single day. In the beginning, it was difficult for me to converse with them knowing that I would have to be their mother for the rest of their life and that it was their choice whether or not to accept me as the same. It is not easy for young girls, especially ones whose dad was in the army and they had thus grown up against the backdrop of a hard life, to be able to accept someone into their hearts so easily. Knowing this, I plunged into the situation trying to become their friend rather than their mother because I knew that the only way I could teach them and help them along their journey of life was by letting them know that I would be there as a friend first and that I was not trying to replace their mother in any way. Even though their mother abandoned them, the children were not furious about the situation; had they been so, they would have been extremely reluctant to accept another mother in their life for fear of losing out on her as well. However, they took me in as a big sister or a friend first and slowly with time ha ve come to terms with the fact that I am to play the role of the mother in their lives. A stepmother has a wicked stereotype in today’s world, and even though it is easy for children to accept stepfathers today, being a stepmother is hard because of the immense number of stories that a child hears these days about bad stepmothers. Since both the daughters were at a young stage in their lives, scared and vulnerable with respect to their emotions and feelings, it was indeed very difficult for me to sort out my feelings with respect to them and adopt them as my own. For me as well, I wanted to give birth to children rather than to have them already blossoming into young girls, however today I have realised the importance of raising a child; it does not matter what the child’s age is but how the child responds to their parents and what kind of a human being the child has been shaped into by the parents, from whichever age onwards it might be. I was extremely scared to be r ejected by my daughters initially as well, however, with love from both sides, we were able to make each other’s understand that this change that was going to be taking place in all our lives would be a significant and successful one with lots of love and affection as well as understanding being delivered on a mutual basis. Today, I am extremely close to the children since my husband is in the military and thus we get to spend

Leadership theories and behavior approaches Essay

Leadership theories and behavior approaches - Essay Example eadership approaches in order to solve the technological equipment challenges as well as the communication and cultural differences that exist among the various groups of employees. The research paper will help to identify the different leadership theories and behavioral approaches that can help promote teamwork and employee motivations as well as dealing with the challenges faced by the employees working in the company and located in various parts of the world. One of the theories that can help boost the performance of the team at their places of work is motivation theory. Various motivation theories have been dissected and created over the past century with the aim of helping understand the human behavior. Motivation is as the general individual willingness and desire to do something (Choi, 2006). Motivational theories will be very essential and will form vital parts of creating team success and behavior of the employees in the company. Executives have to understand what motivates the employees before coming up with up strategies that will help direct them in the right direction. Motivational theories thrive from the center of influence and thereby inspirational and practical leadership. Some of the strategies that can be employed by the executives and the stakeholders of the company in order to promote employee motivation includes, feeling of being part of something, promotion, responsibility and empowerment, stimulating works, learning and growth, sense of achievement and recognizing their ability. Effective planning on the employee motivation will enable the company to reach and motivate nearly all the employees located in the various offices around the world such as Mexico City, Chicago, settle, Bombay, London and Tokyo and many others. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will help identify the various motivational needs of the employees and thereby intervening to help them achieve it. The desire and develop and grow is often evident after the employee’s need

Joseph Stalin Essay Example for Free

Joseph Stalin Essay One man that has gone down is history as one of the most cold-hearted, ruthless killers goes by the name of Joseph Stalin. Stalin, originally born with the name Iosif Dzhugashvili, was born in Gori, Georgia on December 21st 1879. At the time, the town where Iosif Dzhugashvili was born and raised was plagued by a lot of street violence. After demonstrating his devious way of thinking and his will to come to absolute power, Iosif Dzhugashvili eventually adopted the nickname â€Å"Stalin† from the Russian word â€Å"steel†. Once he received his new nickname, he used it as a pseudonym in his published works. Many do not know the story of Stalin’s younger years and the effect it had to the way he carried himself as a dictator. After careful speculation, it is clear to see that the future dictator and killer was very coldhearted from a very young age. From a very young age, Joseph Stalin was subjected to a lot of violence. Some of the most prominent violent events that affected the young boy started with his mother. Ekaterina Shubnaya in her piece â€Å"Prominent Russians: Joseph Stalin† states that â€Å"Some sources, however, claim that, as a strict and religious woman, she frequently resorted to physical punishment, which she believed was an integral part of child rearing. Stalin’s relationship with his mother was strained and he didn’t even attend her funeral in 1937† (1). Here, we see that violence was a natural way of Stalin’s mother to raise the youngest son of her 4 children. She would have never thought that this violence would have led her son to become one of the most violent human beings to ever live. The psychological effects of violence that Joseph Stalin went through from a young age followed him for the rest of his life. After further research, it is seen that even as a young boy, Joseph Stalin felt very lonely and unloved. The reason for this was because even his father, caused him pain psychologically and physically. Ekaterina Shubnaya continues by explaining that â€Å"Josephs father, Vissarion, a shoemaker, was heavily addicted to drinking and had a drunken habit of beating up his wife and son. Stalin recalled getting so mad at his father that he once almost killed him by throwing a knife at him† (1). His rough childhood only continued when at the age of twelve, two horse-drawn carriage accidents left his left arm permanently damaged. At the time, Joseph also caught small pox which left his face permanently scarred. The scarring on his face was a source of ridicule by the other children. As Joseph Stalin got older, he rose to power thanks to a man named Lenin. Lenin lead the Russian Communists to power in November 1917 and remained in power. With the help of Lenin, Joseph Stalin began to act ruthless and careless of others. When Lenin became too sick to lead the country in a proper way, Stalin took over and went against Lenin’s ideas and ways of leading. Noticing that Stalin wasn’t showing the characteristics of a loyal and respectful leader, Lenin wrote a testament in which he stated that he suggested Stalin be removed. John Simkin, in his piece â€Å"Joseph Stalin† shares the testament written by Lenin. It states â€Å"Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated enormous power in his hands: and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution. I therefore propose to our comrades to consider a means of removing Stalin from this post and appointing someone else who differs from Stalin in one weighty respect: being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite, more considerate of his comrades(2). However, Lenin died before any actual could be taken and Joseph Stalin became the new leader of the Soviet Union. Now as the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin became very paranoid and did not trust anyone. He went against anyone that disagreed with him and had them executed. He executed journalists, and anyone else who had contact with him and who he disliked. Leon Trotsky was a man of a lot of power in the Soviet Union but Stalin made him step down from his position to gain even more power. John Simkin tells us that â€Å"In 1936 Nickolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Krestinsky and Christian Rakovsky were arrested and accused of being involved with Leon Trotsky in a plot against Stalin. They were all found guilty and were eventually executed† (3). The execution of these people and of many others was clear evidence that Joseph Stalin was killing people not because they were committing crimes or doing anything bad, but because he personally didn’t trust them and killed them from pure intuition and impulse. The absurd truth about Joseph Stalin is that he killed his own people. He killed people in his own country and in his own government. The people that helped him rise to power were the people he did not trust and who he had executed or made to disappear without any explanation given. John Simkin explains to us that â€Å"In June, 1937, Mikhail Tukhachevsky and seven other top Red Army commanders were charged with conspiracy with Germany. All eight were convicted and executed. All told, 30,000 members of the armed forces were executed. This included fifty per cent of all army officers† (3). With all these executions, people lived fearful of Stalin and did not dare test his patience. The violence against his own people is direct evidence of the psychological effects that the beatings from his parents had on Stalin. Since the people who supposedly loved him, beat him, it became second nature for Joseph Stalin to do the same with the people of his country when he rose to power. It is said that Joseph Stalin has killed over 20 million people during the time of dictatorship but there were even more killed during World War II. Palash Ghosh in her piece â€Å"How Many People Did Joseph Stalin Kill? † writes that â€Å"an amoral psychopath and paranoid with a gangster’s mentality, Stalin eliminated anyone and everyone who was a threat to his power – including (and especially) former allies. He had absolutely no regard for the sanctity of human life†(1). There were another 20 million people killed during World War II amounting to a total of 40 million Soviet troops and civilians killed. The ruthlessness Joseph Stalin showed had become vividly present with his own family. Stalin had a son named Yakov who was an artillery lieutenant in the 14th Howitzer Regiment of the 14th Armored Division. Yakov refused to withdraw when German forces overran his men near Smolensk. Stalin had the expectation that no Soviet soldier was expected to be captured. He preferred his troops to commit suicide than to be captured by the opponent. This rule also applied to his son, who was captured. Brenda Haugen, writer of â€Å"Joseph Stalin Dictator of the Soviet Union† describes that â€Å"German authorities proposed a trade. They expected the Soviet leader would welcome his son’s return. A message was sent to Stalin that said the Germans would release Yakov if the Soviets freed a German officer. Stalin refused. ‘I cannot do it,’ Stalin said. ’War is war’†(11). This decision cost Yakov his life who was later believed to be killed or may have commited suicide. He died in April 1943 after running into an electric fence surrounding the camp where he was held. It is said that Joseph Stalin never felt any remorse for his son’s death and told people he had no son named Yakov. It is a clear indication that Stalin didn’t have a special bond with his family or any type of value for human life in itself. It seems that Stalin grew to be a coldhearted man who didn’t value anyone but himself. Brenda Haugen continues by stating that â€Å"In times of war, most leaders would find it difficult to justify offering special treatment to their own children. How could they spare their own childrens lives while others died fighting for the same cause? But Stalin was different than other leaders of his time. Not only did he refuse to provide special treatment to his family, he also didn’t value human life†(11). The ruthlessness of Stalin is astonishing that he would let his son be killed without any type of remorse. There’s an old saying that says that family comes first but this saying doesn’t seem to apply to Joseph Stalin’s way of thinking. Even though Stalin was one of the most well-known villains in history, he was still a very mysterious man. There is very little known about his childhood and his family. The records that have been recorded are not concrete because as Stalin gained power, he had the tendency to make things be the way he wanted them to be and no one could question him. This being said, some facts of his life seem to be produced by his fictional events created by him and not what may have really happened. Scott Ingram writes in his piece â€Å"Historys Villains Joseph Stalin† that â€Å" Another reason Stalin’s life remains shadowy is that he ordered his biography to be rewritten several times. With each of these rewrites, older records were destroyed. The more powerful Stalin became, the more he was able to take credit for things he had not done. His Communist biographers were forced to revise twentieth-century Russian history books to go along with Stalin’s orders. The aim was to present to the world the most flawless possible account of the great leader†(8). These lies brainwashed people into thinking that Stalin was a different person than who he really was. He made people see him as a perfect leader and not as a person who was killing the people that supported him. In conclusion, it is very easy to see that Stalin was influenced by his childhood experiences to become the person he was. The ruthless leader took the experience of the beatings his parents gave him and in a way beat his own country when he rose to power. He was and still is the most ruthless leather to ever live. He used fear to keep people controlled and to make people do exactly what he wanted them to do. He had people in such fear that before every speech, people were afraid to be the first to stop clapping because they’d be killed. The audience would clap for over 10 minutes in fear of being the first one to stop. This type of control is what let Joseph Stalin do anything he wanted without having anyone tell him it is wrong or to stop him from doing it. During his last days, he fell into a comma and in his last moments, in an attempt to keep living, he cursed everyone near his death bed and finally died. Joseph Stalin was a ruthless dictator and human being who had no type of remorse for anything he ever did.

The Black Panther Party Fights for Equality :: Race African American History Essays

The Black Panther Party Fights for Equality The Black Panther Party was born to elevate the political, social, and economic status of Blacks. The means the Party advocated in their attempt to advance equality were highly unconventional and radical for the time, such as social programs for under privileged communities and armed resistance as a means of self preservation. The Party made numerous contributions to Black’s situation as well as their esteem, but fell victim to the ‘system’ which finds it nearly impossible to allow Blacks entry into the dominant culture. Thus, the rise and fall of a group of Black radicals, as presented by Elaine Brown in A Taste of Power, can be seen to represent the overall plight of the American Black: a system which finds it impossible to give Blacks equality. Nearly all of the problems the Black Panther Party attacked are the direct descendants of the system which enslaved Blacks for hundreds of years. Although they were given freedom roughly one hundred years before the arrival of the Party, Blacks remain victims of White racism in much the same way. They are still the target of White violence, regulated to indecent housing, remain highly uneducated and hold the lowest position of the economic ladder. The continuance of these problems has had a nearly catastrophic effect on Blacks and Black families. Brown remembers that she â€Å"had heard of Black men-men who were loving fathers and caring husbands and strong protectors.. but had not known any† until she was grown (105). The problems which disproportionatly affect Blacks were combatted by the Party in ways the White system had not. The Party â€Å"organized rallies around police brutality against Blacks, made speeches and circulated leaflets about every social and political issue affecting Black and poor people, locally, nationally, and internationally, organized support among Whites, opened a free clinic, started a busing-to prisons program which provided transport and expenses to Black families† (181). The Party’s goals were to strengthen Black communities through organization and education. The dominant culture perceived the Black Panther Party to be a threat, prevented their success whenever possible, and greatly contributed to their ultimate demise. In 1968 FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover proclaimed: â€Å"The Black Panther Party is the single greatest threat to the internal security of the United States† (156). The Party’s founder, Huey Newton, came to represent â€Å"the symbol of change for Americans, (by) questioning everything scared to the American way of life† (237).

Philosophies of Learning Theory

INTRODUCTION What is theory? A theory is a way of thinking and a model of how things work, how principles are related, and what causes things to work together. Learning theories address key questions, for example, how does learning happen? How does motivation occur? What influences students’ development? A theory is not just an idea. It’s an idea that is a coherent explanation of a set of relationships that has been tested with lots of research. If the idea survives rigorous testing, that theory is said to have empirical grounding. A theory is developed from practical experience as well as research.Any given theory is usually about one aspect of the learning process. Learning theories  are  conceptual frameworks  that describe how information is absorbed, processed, and retained during  learning. Learning brings together cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences and experiences for acquiring, enhancing, or making changes in one's knowledge, skills, valu es, and world views. There are three main categories of learning theory:  behaviorism,  cognitivism, and  constructivism. Behaviorism focuses only on the objectively observable aspects of learning.Cognitive theories look beyond behavior to explain brain-based learning. And constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts. Philosophies of teaching and learning, numerous philosophers have studied what the meaning of to teach and learn, and have come up with various explanations of the process of becoming educated. Their begin to refine their own beliefs and understandings of what it means to know through examining numerous theories of knowledge and making sense of the processes of teaching and learning in their own minds.An few philosophies and examples of individuals who exemplify the concepts are worth exploring: Existentialism (Maxine Greene, Jean-Paul Sartre, Soren Kierkegaard, Simone de Beauvoir), Critical T heory (Karl Marx, Henry Geroux, Michael Apple, Paulo Friere), Behaviorism (B. F. Skinner), Cognitivism / Developmentalism (Maria Montessori, A. S. Neill, John Dewey, Knowles, Waldorf Schools, Reggio Emilia Schools), Social Constructivism (John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, Montessori, Reggio Emilia and Waldorf Schools). 1. 0 LEARNING THEORIESIn  psychology  and education,  learning  theories are attempts to describe how people and animals learn, thereby helping us understand the inherently complex process of learning. There are three main categories (philosophical frameworks) under which learning  theories fall: behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. 1. 1 Behaviorism Behaviorism focuses only on the objectively observable aspects of learning and discounts the internal processing that might be associated with the activity. Learning is the acquisition of new  behavior  through conditioning. There are two types of possible conditioning: ) Classical conditionin g, where the  behavior  becomes a reflex response to stimulus as in the case of Pavlov's Dogs. 2) Operant conditioning where there is reinforcement of the  behavior  by a reward or a punishment. The theory of operant conditioning was developed by B. F. Skinner and is known as Radical Behaviorism. The word ‘operant’ refers to the way in which behavior ‘operates on the environment’. Briefly, a behavior may result either in reinforcement, which increases the likelihood of the behavior recurring, or punishment, which decreases the likelihood of the behavior recurring.It is important to note that, a punisher is not considered to be punishment if it does not result in the reduction of the behavior, and so the terms punishment and reinforcement are determined as a result of the actions. Within this framework, behaviorists are particularly interested in measurable changes in behavior. 1. 2. Cognitivism Since the Cognitive Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, learning theory has undergone a great deal of change. Much of the empirical framework of Behaviorism was retained even though a new paradigm was begun. Cognitive theories look beyond behavior to explain brain-based learning.Cognitivists consider how human memory works to promote learning. So for example how the natural physiological processes of encoding information into short term memory and long term memory become important to educators. Once memory theories like the Atkinson-Shiffrin memory model and Baddeley's Working memory model were established as a theoretical framework in Cognitive  Psychology, new cognitive frameworks of learning began to emerge during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Today researchers are concentrating on topics like Cognitive load and Information Processing Theory.These theories of learning are very useful as they guide the Instructional design. 1. 3. Constructivism Constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds n ew ideas or concepts based upon current and past knowledge. In other words, â€Å"learning involves constructing one's own knowledge from one's own experiences. † Constructivist learning, therefore, is a very personal endeavor, whereby internalized concepts, rules, and general principles may consequently be applied in a practical real-world context. 1. 4. Informal and Post-Modern TheoriesInformal theories of education deal with more practical breakdown of the learning process. One of these deals with whether learning should take place as a building of concepts toward an overall idea, or the understanding of the overall idea with the details filled in later. Modern thinkers favor the latter, though without any basis in real world research. Critics believe that trying to teach an overall idea without details (facts) is like trying to build a masonry structure without bricks. Other concerns are the origins of the drive for learning.To this end, many have split off from the mains tream holding that learning is a primarily self taught thing, and that the ideal learning situation is one that is self taught. According to this dogma, learning at its basic level is all self taught, and class rooms should be eliminated since they do not fit the perfect model of self learning. However, real world results indicate that isolated students fail. Social support seems crucial for sustained learning. Informal learning theory also concerns itself with book vs real-world experience learning. Many consider most schools severely lacking in the second.Newly emerging hybrid instructional models combining traditional classroom and computer enhanced instruction promise the best of both worlds. 2. 0 PHILOSOPHY ON LEARNING THEORIES. People have been trying to understand learning for over 2000 years. Learning theorists have carried out a debate on how people learn that began at least as far back as the Greek philosophers, Socrates (469 –399 B. C. ), Plato (427 – 347 B. C. ), and Aristotle(384 – 322 B. C). The debates that have occurred through the ages reoccur today in a variety of viewpoints about the purposes of education and about how to encourage learning.To a substantial extent, the most effective strategies for learning depend on what kind of learning is desired and toward what ends. Plato and one of his students, Aristotle, were early entrants into the debate about how people learn. They asked, â€Å"Is truth and knowledge to be found within us (rationalism) or is it to be found outside of ourselves by using our senses (empiricism)? † Plato, as a rationalist, developed the belief that knowledge and truth can be discovered by self-reflection. Aristotle, the empiricist, used his senses to look for truth and knowledge in the world outside of him.From his empirical base Aristotle developed a scientific method of gathering data to study the world around him. Socrates developed the dialectic method of discovering truth through conv ersations with fellow citizens (Monroe, 1925). Inquiry methods owe much of their genesis to the thinking of Aristotle and others who followed this line of thinking. Strategies that call for discourse and reflection as tools for developing thinking owe much to Socrates and Plato. The Romans differed from the Greeks in their concept of education.The meaning of life did not intrigue them as much as developing a citizenry that could contribute to society in a practical way, for building roads and aqueducts. The Romans emphasized education as the vocational training rather than as the training of the mind for the discovery of truth. Modern vocational education and apprenticeship methods are reminiscent of the Roman approach to education. As we will see, however, strategies to encourage cognitive apprenticeships combine the modeling inherent in learning by guided doing with the discourse, reflection, and inquiry that the Greeks suggested to train the mind.When the Roman Catholic Church be came a strong force in European daily life (500 A. D. to 1500 A. D. ), learning took place through the church, through monasteries, and through their school system, which included the universities (12th century) the Church built throughout Europe. Knowledge was transmitted from the priest to the people (Monroe, 1925). Much learning was the memorization and recitation of scripture by rote and the learning of trades by apprenticeship. The primary conception of the purpose of education was transmission-based.Many classrooms today continue a transmission-based conception of learning as the passing on of information from the teacher to the student, with little interest in transforming it or using it for novel purposes. The Renaissance (15th to the 17th centuries) revived the Greek concept of liberal education, which stressed education as an exploration of the arts and humanities. Renaissance philosophers fought for freedom of thought, and thus Humanism, a study of human values that are n ot religion-based, was born.By the sixteenth century the control of the Catholic Church was being challenged on a number of fronts, from Copernicus (1473 – 1543) who suggested that the sun rather than the earth was the center of the Solar System, to Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) who sought to secularize education (Monroe,1925). The notions of individual inquiry and discovery as bases for learning were reinforced in the Renaissance. In a sense the recurring ideological debates over education for â€Å"basic† skills – the reproduction of facts and rudimentary skills – vs. ducation for thinking – the effort to understand ideas and use knowledge for broader purposes – replay the medieval vs. Renaissance conceptions of the purposes of education. Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) revived the Platonic concept of innate knowledge. Descartes believed that ideas existed within human beings prior to experience and that God was an example of an i nnate idea. He recognized that the body could be appreciated and studied as a zoological machine, while the mind was separate and free from the body.He was one of the first to define precisely the ability of the environment and the mind to influence and initiate behavior. He also described how the body could produce unintended behaviors. Descartes’ first description of reflex action was influential in psychology for over 300 years (Hergenhahn, 1976). While these findings supported the work of behavioral psychologists seeking to understand the genesis of behaviors, his focus on the mind also supported the work of later cognitive scientists who sought to understand the thinking process itself.John Locke (1632 – 1704) revived Aristotle’s empiricism with the concept that the child’s mind is a blank tablet (tabula rasa) that gets s haped and formed by his/her own experiences. He believed the mind becomes what it experiences from the outside world. â€Å"Let u s suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: How comes it to be furnished? †¦ Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? †¦ from experience† (Locke, quoted in Hilgard and Bower 1975).The mind gathers data through the senses and creates simple ideas from experience; these simple ideas combine to develop complex ideas. Locke believed that education should structure experiences for students and that one essential learning was the kind of discipline that could be developed through the study of mathematics (Hergenhahn, 1976). The idea that different disciplines provide qualitatively different mental experiences and means of training the mind undergirds the basis of the discipline-based liberal arts education.Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) was one of the first philosophers to suggest that education should be shaped to the child. He celebrated the concept of childhood and felt that children should be allowed to develop naturally. â€Å"The only habit which the child should be allowed to form is to contract no habit whatever. † (Rousseau, quoted in Hilgard and Bower, 1975) In Rousseau’s novel, Emile (Rousseau, 2000), the hero learns about life through his experiences in life. Complex ideas are built from simple ideas that are gathered from the world around him (Hilgard and Bower, 1975).The child-centered philosophies of Dewey, Montessori, Piaget and others follow in part from similar views. Kant (1724 – 1804) refined and modernized Plato’s rationalist theory with his suggestion that â€Å"a priori† knowledge was knowledge that was present before experience. For Kant, awareness of knowledge may begin with experience but knowledge existed prior to experience. Kant espoused that these ideas must be innate, and their purpose is to create an organizing structure for the data that is received by the senses.Kant was also one of the first to recognize t he cognitive processes of the mind, the idea that the mind was a part of the thinking process and capable of contributing to the thoughts that it developed. This learning theory opened the door to Piaget and others who would further develop the ideas of cognition (Monroe, 1925). Edward Thorndike (1874 – 1949) is considered by many to be the first modern education psychologist who sought to bring a scientific approach to the study of learning. Thorndike believed that learning was incremental and that people learned through a trial and error approach.His behaviorist theories of learning did not consider that learning took place as a result of mental constructs. Instead, he described how mental connections are formed through positive responses to particular stimuli. For Thorndike, learning was based on an association between sense impressions and an impulse to action. Thorndike favored students’ active learning and sought to structure the environment to ensure certain sti muli that would ‘produce’ learning. The father of modern behaviorism, B. F. Skinner (1904 – 1990), further developed Thorndike’s Stimulus-Response learning theory.Skinner was responsible for developing programmed learning which was based on his stimulus response research on rats and pigeons in experiments that provided positive reinforcement for â€Å"correct† responses. He considered learning to be the production of desired behaviors, and denied any influence of mental processes. Programmed learning gave proper reinforcement to the student, emphasized reward over punishment, moved the student by small steps through discrete skills and allowed the student to move at their own speed. â€Å"There are certain questions which have to be answered in turning to the study of any new organism.What behavior is to be set up? What reinforcers are at hand? What responses are available in embarking upon a program of progressive approximation that will lead to t he final form of the behavior? How can reinforcements be most effectively scheduled to maintain the behavior in strength? These questions are all relevant in considering the problem of the child in the lower grades. † Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) was the first to state that learning is a developmental cognitive process, that students create knowledge rather than receive knowledge from the teacher.He recognized that students construct knowledge based on their experiences, and that how they do so is related to their biological, physical, and mental stage of development. Piaget spent years observing very young children and mapping out four stages of growth: sensorimotor (birth to about 2 years), preoperational (roughly ages 2 –7), concrete operations (encompassing about ages 7- 14) and formal operations (beginning around ages 11 – 15 and extending into adulthood.His work acknowledged the utility of some behaviorally-guided rote learningwhile also arguing that ot her activities that support students’ exploration are essential: The Russian scientist Vygotsky (1896 – 1934) extended Piaget’s developmental theory of cognitive abilities of the individual to include the notion of social-cultural cognition – that is, the idea that all learning occurs in a cultural context and involves social interactions. He emphasized the role that culture and language play in developing students’ thinking and the ways in which teachers and peers assist learners in developing new ideas and skills.Vygotsky proposed the concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) which suggested that students learn subjects best just beyond their range of existing experience with assistance from the teacher or another peer to bridge the distance from what they know or can do independently and what they can know or do with assistance (Schunk, 1996). John Dewey (1859 – 1952) agreed in part with Rousseau that education should not be separ ate from life itself, that education should be child-centered, guided by a welltrained teacher who is grounded in pedagogical and subject knowledge.Like Locke, he believed that structured experience matters and disciplinary modes of inquiry could allow the development of the mind, thus creating a dialectic between the child and the curriculum that the teacher must manage. The teacher’s goal is to understand both the demands of the discipline and the needs of the child and then to provide learning experiences to enable the student to uncover the curriculum. Dewey believed that the ability of a person to learn was dependent on many things, one of which was the environment. . 0 Future trends There are many changes occurring in the twenty-first century which will influence the nature of learning and learning styles being adopted. Perhaps the most significant change is that universities are now increasingly competing with a range of non-traditional education providers. This will f orce higher education into a pro-active stance in understanding how students learn best, and how teaching impacts on learning. Additional contemporary changes include globalisation, modularisation, mobility of earners, distance education/elearning/flexible learning, lifelong learning, mass education, and work-based learning. ‘The de-institutionalisation of education, in the form of open and independent learning systems, is creating a need for learners to develop appropriate skills’ (Knowles, 1975, p. 14). The impact here on learners is the gradual move away from the more traditional forms of teaching and learning, where information was transmitted to the student through physical interaction between teacher and student, to more self-directed, student-centred approaches.Problem-based learning is an example of one approach to learning where the learner needs to take responsibility for his or her own learning, with the teacher now increasingly assuming the role of facilitat or of student learning. The impact of technology and the internet will continue to increase, having economic and social implications for society. For instance people can now work from home if they have immediate access to a computer. This may facilitate the increase of distance-learning courses as students no longer have to attend a physical campus to gain qualifications.Increasing modularisation enables many students to learn at their own pace, in their own time. CONCLUSION The Philosophy of education has been shaped over centuries with certain philosophers and their thoughts directly affecting it. A good example is Plato and his  educational philosophy  that was christened Republic. He argues that the society would be holistic if children at a tender age would be raised with a system of education that natures their intellectual capabilities with facts, physical discipline, music, art and skills.The same principles can be applied to an individual institution. This can be define d as a collective approach informed by educational philosophy  to aid in teaching in a way that the objective of imparting knowledge is achieved within a reasonable time. This philosophy of education is subject to review and modification, total over haul or improvements depending on whether the constant evaluation shows whether the goals set have been achieved or not. The drastic advances in technology have also affected the educational philosophy.The world is moving towards the web 2. 0, where technological interaction between learners and teachers is emphasized. Another factor that informs education philosophy is the fact that the world is changing its educational strategies. At one point in history, education was a transit of knowledge from the tutor to student. With nationals encouraging innovations and research in various fields, students are encouraged to discover, be inquisitive and get to learn through active experiments and research.This is a way that has revolutionized t he way education policy makers and other stakeholders define philosophy of education. The relevancy of a given  philosophy of education  therefore, is determined by the educational needs of a given society. REFERENCES 1- Level3, Issue 2, June 2004, Dublin Institute of Technology, Learning Theories and Higher Education; Frank Ashworth, Gabriel Brennan, Kathy Egan, Ron Hamilton, Olalla Saenz; 2- Critique of Various Philosophies and Theories of Education; Ted Slater, Philosophy of Education / Dr.William Cox / Regent University. 3- 2007, Pearson Education, Inc. H. Douglas Brown. -5th Edition; Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. 4- Kurzweil, R. (1996) The Age of intelligent machines â€Å"Chronology†. Retrieved September 18, 2012 from http://www. kurzweiltech. com/mchron. htm. 5- 2001, Stanford University, Developed by Linda-Darling Hammond, Kim Austin, Suzanne Orcutt, and Jim Rosso; How People Learn: Introduction To Learning Theories.