So You Have to Have a Portfolio or Knowledge Creating Company

So You Have to Have a Portfolio: A Teacher's Guide to Preparation and Presentation

Author: Robert L Wyatt

Don't be intimidated when you are asked to demonstrate you educational competence. This book takes you through the process of developing a professional portfolio to showcase your skills. Whether you want to enhance you professional development, gain certification, traverse a performance evaluation, or obtain employment, you can now create a presentation to meet that specific need. This nut-and-bolts presentation starts with a description of the various kinds of professional portfolios and guides you through material selection, assembly, and presentation. You'll learn the difference between a developmental and showcase portfolio-and when to use each one. You'll learn how to address professional standards and how to smoothly integrate you portfolio into a presentation. The handy resource section offers:  Portfolio planning and quality checklists  On-line resources  Rubrics for evaluation portfolios

Table of Contents:

	Preface to the Second Edition
	About the Authors
1	Defining Portfolios and Their Purposes	1
2	Developmental Portfolios: Documenting Personal Growth	13
3	Showcase Portfolios: Putting Your Best Foot Forward	23
4	Reflecting on Your Artifacts	33
5	Mapping Out the Plan	41
6	Self-Assessment of the Artifacts and Design	59
7	Putting It All Together: Nuts and Bolts	73
8	Presenting the Professional Portfolio	87
9	Electronic Portfolios	103
10	Portfolios for National Board Certification	115
A	Descriptive Words to Enhance Education-Related Activities	125
B	Oklahoma General Competencies for Teacher Licensure and Certification	126
C	Online Resources for the Development of Teacher Portfolios	128
D	Portfolio Planner	130
E	Portfolio Quality Checklist	131
F	Rubric for Evaluating Portfolios	132
G	Evaluation Rating Form for Interview	134
H	Self-Evaluation Rubrics for Basic Teacher Computer Use	135
I	Rubric for Assessing Electronic Portfolios	139
J	Online Resources for Electronic Portfolios	140
	References	143
	Index	147

See also: Statistical Thinking or We Are What We Eat

Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation

Author: Ikujiro Nonaka

How have Japanese companies become world leaders in the automotive and electronics industries, among others? What is the secret of their success? Two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, are the first to tie the success of Japanese companies to their ability to create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. In The Knowledge-Creating Company, Nonaka and Takeuchi provide an inside look at how Japanese companies go about creating this new knowledge organizationally.
The authors point out that there are two types of knowledge: explicit knowledge, contained in manuals and procedures, and tacit knowledge, learned only by experience, and communicated only indirectly, through metaphor and analogy. U.S. managers focus on explicit knowledge. The Japanese, on the other hand, focus on tacit knowledge. And this, the authors argue, is the key to their success--the Japanese have learned how to transform tacit into explicit knowledge.
To explain how this is done--and illuminate Japanese business practices as they do so--the authors range from Greek philosophy to Zen Buddhism, from classical economists to modern management gurus, illustrating the theory of organizational knowledge creation with case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, Nissan, 3M, GE, and even the U.S. Marines. For instance, using Matsushita's development of the Home Bakery (the world's first fully automated bread-baking machine for home use), they show how tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge: when the designers couldn't perfect the dough kneading mechanism, a software programmer apprenticed herselfwith the master baker at Osaka International Hotel, gained a tacit understanding of kneading, and then conveyed this information to the engineers. In addition, the authors show that, to create knowledge, the best management style is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather what they call "middle-up-down," in which the middle managers form a bridge between the ideals of top management and the chaotic realities of the frontline.
As we make the turn into the 21st century, a new society is emerging. Peter Drucker calls it the "knowledge society," one that is drastically different from the "industrial society," and one in which acquiring and applying knowledge will become key competitive factors. Nonaka and Takeuchi go a step further, arguing that creating knowledge will become the key to sustaining a competitive advantage in the future.
Because the competitive environment and customer preferences changes constantly, knowledge perishes quickly. With The Knowledge-Creating Company, managers have at their fingertips years of insight from Japanese firms that reveal how to create knowledge continuously, and how to exploit it to make successful new products, services, and systems.

Library Journal

This book addresses the generation-old question of why the Japanese are so successful in business. The authors, professors of management at Hitosubashi University, contend that Japanese firms are successful because they are innovative, that is, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. They identify two types of organizational knowledge: explicit knowledge, contained in procedures and manuals, and tacit knowledge, learned only by experience. U.S. managers tend to focus on explicit knowledge and stress approaches such as benchmarking, while the Japanese focus on tacit knowledge. Using corporate examples such as Honda, NEC, Nissan, 3M, and GE, the authors provide insights that reveal how to blend the best of both worlds. This scholarly volume is highly recommended not only for academics (especially in organizational theory) but also for readers doing business in and with Japan.-Joseph W. Leonard, Miami Univ., Oxford, Ohio