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Building A Co-Curricular Wellness Program for Medical Students at a Canadian Medical School
Get PDFThe increasing number of medical students who present with mental illness and burnout is becoming a very real challenge among medical schools nationally and globally, prompting a need for medical schools to address this very real problem. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) seeks to help solve this problem by means of a co-curricular wellness program aimed at preventing mental illness and burnout from happening. Rather than being reactive as students self-identify as having a mental illness, this OIP argues for preventative measures that help to prevent mental illness and burnout from occurring at all.
Using a three-pronged leadership approach of authentic, distributed and servant, improvement in the area of mental illness and burnout is an institution-wide problem to solve, one that requires the input of everyone: senior leadership, administration, faculty, staff and students. In particular, faculty will be key in the design and implementation of a co-curricular wellness program, as it has been shown that the learning environment directly affects the mental health of students (Daskivish et al., 2014). It is hoped that the change plan which employs a collaborative approach, along with a shared vision and purpose, will help to decrease the number of medical students who present with mental illnesses
Implementing Character Development to Align to Ideological Goals
Get PDFThis Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) explores a Problem of Practice (PoP) that examines the lack of character development opportunities for students within a lower school (K-5) context. It explores the need to unify academic achievement and character education as mutually reinforcing parts of the curriculum. American International School, AIS, (pseudonym) is a private, non-profit independent K-12 American based college preparatory school with a hierarchal structure located in a medium-sized city in Asia. The organization\u27s practices focus on academic excellence and on achieving the mission paraphrased as helping to shape caring and moral individuals who can make a positive difference in the world. One of the school\u27s strategic plan goals focuses on the continued development of character across the community. However, a strong focus on academics and schedule time constraints limits the achievement of this objective. This OIP incorporates transformational and servant leadership approaches. It is viewed from a social constructivist lens to understand the world in which I work (Creswell, 2014; Mack, 2010; Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007). A critical lens is also applied since there is a marginalization of teachers\u27 voices advocating for character-related opportunities. The OIP uses a bottom-up, incremental approach to change, and the Change Path Model (Cawsey, Deszca & Ingols, 2016). Nadler and Tushman\u27s (1980) Organizational Congruence Model has also been utilized to demonstrate the lower school components\u27 misalignment. The chosen solution in this OIP addresses the need to implement character education into current structures such as within literacy lessons and the curriculum. This OIP can result in the alignment of practices to the mission, vision, and goals of the organization. In this way, the lower school can achieve its ideological goals
Exploring Resiliency During the Nursing Student Clinical Experience
Get PDFIn nursing programs, it is common for students to not complete their degree (Van Hoek et al., 2019). This problem is perpetuated as students who experience high stress and lack resiliency are more likely to be unsuccessful or take longer to complete their nursing degree (Van Hoek et al., 2019). Resiliency is not only important for students during their degree, it is essential to continuously strengthen it throughout their nursing career (Turner & Kaylor, 2015). The aims of this organizational improvement plan will be to empower nursing students to be more resilient in the clinical setting so that they are more likely to be successful in their school endeavors as well as their nursing careers. The problem of practice that will be addressed is the lack of resiliency in nursing students in the clinical setting in one Western Canada comprehensive college. In attempt to enhance resiliency in all nursing students a critical perspective served as the foundational theoretical framework for this organizational improvement plan. The problem of practice was explored through servant, transformational, and adaptive leadership approaches. To address the problem of practice, Kotter’s Eight Stage Change Model (2012) was the framework used for leading the change process and Nadler and Tushman’s Congruence Model (1980) was utilized as the critical organizational analysis.Through developing a professional learning community among nursing faculty to help develop and include resiliency building strategies in the nursing curriculum, it is proposed that students will adapt strategies that help them foster resilience and be able to continuously strengthen resiliency throughout their nursing careers
Becoming a Trauma Informed School Supporting Students with Behavioural Challenges
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The organization involved in this change process is an elementary school in Ontario. The Problem of Practice (PoP) addresses how to better support students within an inclusive elementary school who may or may not be formally identified with a special education exceptionality yet are unable to thrive due to their interfering behaviours. An exceptional pupil is “one whose behavioural, communicational, intellectual, physical or multiple exceptionalities are such that he or she is considered to need placement in a special education program” (ON Ministry of Education, PART A: Legislation, Policy, and Funding, para.8). These students are demonstrating behaviours that vary from day to day and in levels of extremity. Some exhibited behaviours include: throwing objects, biting, hitting, kicking, punching, spitting on peers and adults in the building and destroying school property. These behaviours are examples of why students are removed from classrooms and potentially placed on a reduced day. Investigations have revealed that many of these students have experienced trauma in their lives, which may impact their ability to self-regulate and independently cope within the school environment. Currently, there are staff and families that do not have the experience and training to best support these students. The Organization Improvement Plan (OIP) being presented shares the plan to expose staff, students and their families to three resources to prompt awareness and build knowledge on how to become trauma-informed. Recognizing the need to interact and engage fully with students, this plan seeks to integrate alternative strategies that mitigate interfering behaviours and will allow students to participate in more meaningful ways
Advancing Employee Engagement With Internationalization Through Networked Leadership Approaches at a Canadian Community College
Get PDFThis organizational improvement plan, undergirded by social network theory, addresses the lack of engagement by many organizational members with an ambitious internationalization goal at Sky College (a pseudonym). The institutional climate is one in which day-to-day challenges prevail and motives for internationalization are questioned. Drawing on system and adaptive leadership, and within the functionalist paradigm, the case is made for advancing 4 factors to increase engagement with internationalization: a shared vision and understanding of internationalization, improving internal communication systems, fostering knowledge creation and sharing, and increasing connections in the network. The proposed solution is a 12-month series of focus on internationalization workshops, presentations, knowledge sharing, and dialogue (Series). To achieve these goals, deliver a successful Series, and advance internationalization as a greater strategic initiative, an integrated framework of change based on the change path model and the dual operating system is presented. Series implementation is situated in the awakening and mobilization phases of the change path model. The framework of change emphasizes creating and maintaining urgency around the big opportunity of internationalization, refining the change vision, and clarifying and adjusting Sky College’s internationalization change initiatives. Although the proposed Series may appear to be a simple solution, from a system leadership perspective, it can prove impactful. This approach can create opportunities for collaboration, mobilize stakeholders, and foster an environment in which the change becomes self-sustaining, becoming embedded within the institution. Similarly, from an adaptive leadership perspective, the Series promotes stakeholders as becoming change agents who collaboratively find their way to solutions. Change leaders work to deepen the debate, facilitate focus, and awaken and mobilize the system toward the desired future state. The Series aims to accomplish this outcome and prime Sky College and its organizational members for achieving the internationalization plan’s ambitious goals
Twitter Talk for National Council on Public History 2020
Get PDFA talk created for a Twitter-based presentation at the National Council on Public History 2020