WASHINGTON — When it comes to adolescents with math and science homework, more isn’t necessarily better — an hour a day is optimal — but doing it alone and regularly produces the biggest knowledge gain, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
Researchers from the University of Oviedo in Spain looked at the performance of 7,725 public, state-subsidized and private school students in the principality of Asturias in northern Spain. The students had a mean age of 13.78. Girls made up 47.2 percent of the sample. The article was published in APA’s Journal of Educational Psychology®.
The students were given questionnaires asking how often they did homework and how much time they spent on various subjects. They were also asked whether they did their homework alone or whether they had help and, if so, how often. Their academic performance in math and science was measured using a standardized test. Adjustments were made to account for gender and socioeconomic background. Prior knowledge was measured using previous grades in math and science.
The researchers found that the students spent on average between one and two hours a day doing homework in all subjects. Students whose teacher systematically assigned homework scored nearly 50 points higher on the standardized test. Students who did their math homework on their own scored 54 points higher than those who asked for frequent or constant help. The curves were similar in science.
“Our data indicate that it is not necessary to assign huge quantities of homework, but it is important that assignment is systematic and regular, with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-regulated learning,” said Javier Suarez-Alvarez, graduate student, co-lead author with Ruben Fernandez-Alonso, PhD, and Professor Jose Muniz. “The data suggest that spending 60 minutes a day doing homework is a reasonable and effective time.”
The total amount of homework assigned by teachers was a little more than 70 minutes per day on average, the researchers found. While some teachers assigned 90-100 minutes of homework per day, the researchers found that the students’ math and science results began to decline at that point. And while they found a small gain in results between 70 and 90 minutes, “that small gain requires two hours more homework per week, which is a large time investment for such small gains,” said Suarez-Alvarez. “For that reason, assigning more than 70 minutes of homework per day does not seem very efficient.”
As for working autonomously or with help, the researchers found that students who needed help and did 70 minutes of homework per day could expect to score in the 50th percentile on their test while autonomous students spending the same amount of homework time could expect to score in the 70th percentile. One possible explanation of this result is that self-regulated learning is strongly connected to academic performance and success, according to Suarez-Alvarez.
“The conclusion is that when it comes to homework, how is more important than how much,” said Suarez-Alvarez. “Once individual effort and autonomous working is considered, the time spent becomes irrelevant.”
Article: “Adolescents’ Homework Performance in Mathematics and Science: Personal Factors and Teaching Practices,” by Ruben Fernandez-Alonso and Javier Suarez-Alvarez, University of Oviedo, and Jose Muniz, University of Oviedo and Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health, Barcelona, Spain; Journal of Educational Psychology; online March 16, 2015.

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Interruptions do the most damage when we allow their appearance to affect us long after we've returned to our initial task.

This can happen for a few reasons:We treat any break in our work flow like it's a fracture in the final product.We resent our seeming inability to avoid distractions and end up treating their appearance as a personal weakness.

We view distractions as a change in our journey instead of just another bend in the river.What can you do about it?

1. Embrace Your Fear

You are not, contrary to what your mother may have told you, different from the rest of us.

We all get distracted. We all get annoyed when a productive moment is interrupted. We all get fed up when scheduled events don't go as planned.

If you allow trepidation to sneak into your mind at the prospect of distractions, you'll cripple your productive abilities.Fearing distractions also fosters resentment against the ones doing the distracting.

Recognize that you will be distracted sometimes and accept those distractions as opportunities to improve. You can't stop distractions but you can keep them from taking over your day.

This is your time!

2. Plan For Interruptions

Effective planning is a cornerstone of the productive lifestyle.

Planning for interruptions might seem impossible. Does it to you? Here's an easy visualization that will help you get started with your planning:

Start each work session by drawing a few squares on a small piece of scrap paper. These represent distractions that will almost certainly pop up. As you encounter and conquer distractions, put a check mark in the appropriate box.

After awhile you'll be able to do this in your head. Sounds easy, right? An expected distraction has no power over your day. You still have control.

3. Delegate and Postpone

Once you've identified an interruption as something that needs attention and not just a nascent longing to goof off, try to postpone your involvement.

The brute way of doing this is to shout out, “I don't have time right now. Don't bother me!”

The classy option is a bit more involved. Take a moment to understand what the distraction involves. Is somebody dying? Is there a deadline you've forgotten? Is there a networking opportunity here?

If it turns out that you're not facing an emergency, postpone your involvement and delegate as much of the detail work to somebody with available resources.

4. Attack Procrastination

It's safe to say that most of us welcome far more distractions than we should. Why?

Because we're chronic procrastinators and distractions offer us a way to slack off without being overtly lazy. The simplest way to attack procrastination is to synthesize urgency with truncated deadlines.

If it normally takes you 3 hours to do something, hit the bathroom, grab a glass of water, set a timer for 90 minutes, and tear into your work! This won't work for every project but it's a lot of fun when it does!

5. Split Your Day Into Targets

Distractions are most dangerous to the person working without short-term goals.

You can keep yourself out of the danger zone by setting targets throughout your day. You'll probably only need to do this for tasks you really don't want to complete.

For example:

Send uncomfortable email by 9am Complete meeting agenda by 12pm Say pleasant thing to annoying boss by 2pm The power in this process is that you now have time-sensitive targets to steer toward once you've escaped distractions.

That 8:45am phone conversation that might have gone on for an hour? Nixed by the email deadline. Crops dying on Farmville at 11am?

Overruled by the meeting agenda!

6. Limit Inputs

The more you limit channels people can use to distract you, the less likely it is that you'll be distracted.

It takes strength of character to ignore social media and your ever-friendly smartphone. It takes trust in the people who work for you to step away from the rush of business and crunch numbers in the back room.

It's hard to disconnect because we often feel a tinge of irrelevance when we step out of the rush.Do it. Your results will be proof that it was worth the effort.

7. Batch Outputs

Responding to emails in batches and scheduling a block of time to make phone calls can seem like a dreary way to do business but it's a highly effective way to keep distractions at arms length.

Batching is even more effective in minimizing the collateral damage caused by Twitter and other social networks if you jump in without a set time frame.

To get started, make a list of the things you must do every day to maintain good communication in your business and throughout your social networks. Give each tool or action it's own time slot and allow a bit of margin at the end.

You won't get the momentary social high of constant real-time interactions but the long-term benefits will make up for your loss.

8. Communicate Your Schedule To Others

When it comes to managing people-based distractions, communication is key.

Need to finish a project? Let the people in your work group know that you'll be off-limits until a certain time.

Trying to finish a freelance project in a houseful of kids? Let them know that unless somebody is dying or the house is burning down, you'll murder a kitten if they interrupt you.Obviously, if you haven't taken the time to create a realistic schedule for yourself, sharing that schedule won't help as much.

9. Begin With The Main Point

When you encounter a distraction, get to the heart of it immediately.

Your “get to the point” style may go over badly with some people who prefer to give back story before sharing their main point. Apologize for any possible rudeness and ask for the main point anyway.

Once you know the main point you can ask for supporting information and make a smart decision about what to do before getting back to work.Getting back to work is what you were about to do, wasn't it?If you've found a particular tip or trick helpful in your quest to beat distractions, I hope you'll take a moment to share it!Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.  

The emphasis on teamwork and cooperation in the workplace today is either not known to certain leaders or simply scorned and ignored. Some leaders prefer the term “boss” and they act in the ways stereotypical to the title.

Some are arrogant. Some are pushy. Some are over-your-shoulder inquisitive about your every project. And some are downright tyrannical.

Whatever the manifestation, the Difficult Boss syndrome is not as helpless as it seems….at least, in some cases.

The first step you need to take is to decide whether you like your job well enough to put the effort into dealing with your challenging boss, or whether there are other considerations that make it illogical to change jobs.

“My difficult boss is not mean or ugly; he’s just weak-willed and inept,” says Rachel, an executive assistant for an insurance office. “He promises things will change; they don’t. Other staff members don’t do their job; he does nothing. We ask for basic and needed resources; he makes vague promises but nothing happens. We are floundering in a sea of indecision and lack of leadership. I’d quit if I could, but I have to work and I know I cannot currently earn more money elsewhere.”

When questioned about the good aspects of her job, Rachel admits they are plentiful. She believes heartily in the mission statement of the business, feeling good about its end-result of positively impacting the security of families. She has excellent co-workers. And even the Difficult Boss has some good traits; he is generous when it comes to training and team programs.

Dan’s boss, however, was more of a Mr. Dithers type. Nothing was politically incorrect to this guy, including cussing, yelling, demanding and firing out of hand. Dan was convinced his boss would eventually land a lawsuit on the company…and he was right. Meanwhile, however, Dan needed the job until he found something better and he had to work with the guy. Eventually a lawsuit did cause Dan’s boss to be fired, but in the two years in between, Dan had to find a ways to maintain peace while working with him.

By following the steps below, the Rachels and Dans of the world can still take pride and enjoyment in their work while minimizing the damage of bad bosses:

1. Determine the reasons you do the work you do. Rachel’s love of her organization’s mission statement was a big plus. As well, she enjoyed her actual administrative duties. Dan also liked his actual job, and kept a list of reasons why in his planner to refer to when things got rough.

2. Define the specific challenges you have with your boss. “He gets on my nerves” is not specific. “He ignores my reasonable conversations about the problems” is.

3. List all the positive aspects of your work environment….including the positive points of your boss. In Rachel’s case, her boss had given her the blessing to attend training and for team members to develop leadership programs to improve the organization’s service. Therefore, this allowed the team to maximize their individual and collective efforts, which meant they minimized the damage of their “bad boss.”

4. Maximize the positives, and work around the negatives. At least Rachel’s boss was willing to let her and others develop teams to address situations. There was a chance that from these meetings would emerge creative, affordable solutions to some of their challenges.

5. Have thorough plans ready to present when you do go to your boss. Those in upper leadership have the ultimate responsibility for the whole organization, and this can mean restraints of which you are unaware. Perhaps instead of being “mean” when not meeting your requests before, your boss was unable to do what was needed. Give enough logical reasons to increase your chances for approval.

6. Become a master documenter. While it seems tedious and wasteful to document events, times and conversations, such a record will be essential if your boss fails to do what is the right thing for the organization.

7. Learn to ask for what you need clearly, and state a follow-up expectation. Do not let your boss create havoc by “dropping the ball” and leaving critical issues unaddressed. This will be helped by clearly stating that you have documented and shared with other key players the information and follow-up dates you are sharing with your boss. This makes his accountability between him and several people, not just him and you.

8. Take a course on assertive communications to avoid taking or giving verbal abuse. Truly “bad bosses” can be verbally abusive, and this is unacceptable. Make sure you don’t reciprocate, but do state clearly that you will not accept this. If needed, bring in another leader in the organization as a witness to important conversations, and, again, remember to keep good notes.

9. If you are completely powerless to affect positive change, find another job. As with all life situations, there is a fine line between admirable persistence and foolish devotion. If your boss has more bad traits than good and these are always going to affect your ability to do and enjoy your work, then it’s time to go. On the next job, don’t just be interviewed….INTERVIEW your potential superiors, with diplomacy of course, to ensure there is a more appropriate match.

Realizing the importance of caring for others in your career, what are some of the ways to demonstrate such a spirit? Previously I mentioned that to care for someone is to give that person something of yourself that is of value. The key words here are “give” and “of value.” Let us now look at how you can share each of your valuable possessions — your love, your time, your knowledge/talent, or your money - with others to help improve their lives.

1. The Gift of Love and Time.  

One of the best ways to share your love and time is to constantly look for ways of doing considerate, often seemingly little things to help others cope with the trying situations they are facing. To be truly meaningful, such acts of kindness are done without expectation of reward or payback of any kind. When you personally help another person without expecting something in return, your gift becomes something far more meaningful than any physical item that you might give. The simple fact that you went out of your way to personally do something to help creates a feeling of uplift in the recipient — a feeling of being appreciated, valued, and loved. Victor Hugo said it best, “The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved.”   Earlier I mentioned that I had the opportunity to work for Frank Borman, the astronaut and president of Eastern Airlines. He had a strong “caring for others” spirit that came from his heart. He often went out of his way to give of himself to others without ever expecting a payback in return.

Years ago, after returning home from a business trip for Eastern, I was startled to find the car of Frank Borman parked in my driveway. To put this incident in perspective, I was just a low level manager in the company, and now one of the most respected business leaders in America and hero of the American Space Program had unexpectedly come to visit my home. Obviously, I was shocked and concerned.

As I opened the back door to our family room and peered inside, I felt my heart pounding and my knees shaking, for certainly something terrible had happened. I will never forget the image that greeted me: Frank Borman, the famous astronaut, sitting on our couch next to my three-year-old daughter, Cindy, whose leg was in a full plaster cast. She was recovering from a serious knee operation. Borman had brought her a teddy bear to cheer her up!

Now, many years have passed and that tattered teddy bear is still one of Cindy’s most cherished possessions - “the teddy bear from the famous astronaut.”

What’s so special about this seemingly small incident in life? It is special because a very prominent and busy leader gave of himself and his valuable time to personally deliver the gift. He could have just as easily given the teddy bear to me at the office saying, “Here is a gift for Cindy,” or mailed it to her, or even had his wife, Susan, drop it off at our home. But what did he do? He went out of his way to bring it himself.

Ironically, the same afternoon that Borman delivered the teddy bear to Cindy, an accident occurred at a construction site a few blocks from our house. While walking next to a building, a worker was struck on the head by a heavy stucco tile that slid off the roof. It caused severe wounds and a concussion. He was rushed to the hospital, received numerous stitches, and was later released to spend time at home to recuperate. A number of his co-o-workers sent cards and visited him. Yet, the one person who did not demonstrate his caring was the construction supervisor, the boss of the injured man. He never called or inquired about the welfare of his employee.

Just as Cindy will never forget the caring thoughtfulness of Frank Borman, the construction worker struck by the tile will never forget the insensitivity and lack of concern of his supervisor.   But, the story does not end here. Years have now passed since Frank Borman delivered the teddy bear to Cindy. During that time, I have told that story to many people to illustrate the power of caring — giving of yourself to others.

The point is that Frank Borman and other caring people will not be remembered for their career achievements and financial successes, but rather they will be remembered for what they did to help others on a personal basis. The impact of a small, seemingly insignificant act of kindness toward another human being can go far beyond just creating fond memories. It can literally set in motion a chain of events that leads to significant change for the better in our society.   Such was the case on a beautiful autumn day in Anderson, S.C. in 1964. According to Gary Smith, writing in “Sports Illustrated,” It all started with a dirty, disheveled 18-year-old boy, named James Robert Kennedy, roaring down a hill on a grocery cart, screaming like a banshee. No one ever plays with him, for he can barely speak and never understands the rules. He cannot read or write a word. He needs to be put away in some kind of institution, people keep telling his mother, because anything, anything at all, can happen out there on the margin.   On that particular day, late in the afternoon, a grocery cart transported Kennedy to the fringes of the McCants Junior High School football practice field. There he observed the team practicing and did his best to mimic the coaches body language and commands. Eventually, his loud noises distracted the players to the point that assistant coach Harold Jones, whose role was to maintain order and discipline on the field, yelled, “Come over here, boy.” At first Kennedy did not respond and did so only when lured with a bottle of soda.   What happened after that first encounter between Coach Jones and Kennedy was the start of what sportscaster Jim Nantz called “one of the most inspiring stories I have ever read.” Coach Jones, instead of reprimanding Kennedy in an effort to keep him away, befriended him. He allowed the boy to remain with him on the sidelines during practices and games and even let him do odd jobs during the school day. After some difficult times, the players and townspeople grew to appreciate Kennedy’s loving, supportive spirit.   Sports Illustrated writer Smith found out about the budding relationship between Coach Jones and Kennedy, who had been affectionately nicknamed “Radio” because it seemed he always had a transistor radio next to his ear. Smith decided to visit Anderson, S.C. to find out first hand if what he heard was true. And in December, 1996, he published an article in the magazine entitled “Someone to Lean On.”

One thing led to another, and in 2003 Columbia Pictures released the film “Radio” that chronicled the first few years of the close relationship between Coach Jones and “Radio” Kennedy.   What started as a simple act of kindness from one human being to another led to the Sports Illustrated article, the movie, and countless speaking engagements by Coach Jones, all of which have brought world-wide attention to the special needs of people like James “Radio” Kennedy.   There is one additional twist to this fascinating story. Several years ago Coach Jones and “Radio” Kennedy visited my church in Hilton Head, South Carolina to address the congregation. After the presentation one of the parishioners asked Jones, “What drove you to help the boy?” Jones than related an incident that occurred early in his life when he was delivering newspapers one morning before dawn. As he approached a house set in from the road he heard noises coming from under the crawl space below the front porch. Dismounting from his bike he took a closer look. He was startled to find a young child in a wire enclosure. Afraid, Jones threw the paper on the porch and fled. Days passed before he said anything. Later, while reflecting upon why he did not report the apparent child abuse incident earlier, he swore to himself that if he ever had another opportunity to help someone in serious need by acting in a courageous manner that he would do so no matter what!  

2. The gift of knowledge and talents.  

The Frank Borman and Coach Jones stories illustrate the power of giving love and time unselfishly to others. What about the giving of your knowledge and talents?

A good example is what a good leader does when he or she spends extra effort to develop a high-potential employee, knowing full well that that person will be promoted out of the organization.
Why do it when the loss of a key employee could adversely affect the short-term performance of your team? The answer is that it is the right thing to do for both the organization and yourself. Accelerating the development of the high-potential employee is obviously the right thing for the organization because it helps ensure its long-term success. Being an unselfish coach is also the best thing for you to do personally. Having a good track record in this important area will attract good people to your team. In addition, your reputation as a top-notch developer of people will be recognized and help you obtain your career objectives.

3. The gift of money.  

The third way of demonstrating your “caring for others” spirit is to unselfishly help others financially. This is often the hardest thing for people to do.   Recently on a TV show, Jon Huntsman, the founder of the multi-billion-dollar company, Huntsman Chemical, was interviewed. After explaining how successful Huntsman had become, the interviewer asked Huntsman to relate what happened during the recession of 2000-01 when his company was faced with bankruptcy. Huntsman described how his company suffered continuous losses and was nearly out of cash. “What did you do then?” asked the interviewer.

“I went to our lead bank and asked for a $50 million loan,” replied Huntsman. “Of course, the banker was interested in what we intended to do with the money and how we would secure it.”

“And what was your response?” prodded the interviewer.

“I told him that we were going to use the money to fulfill the pledges that we had made to various charities.”

“How did the banker react to such a startling statement?”

“I think it ‘floored’ him. He had never heard of such a thing, a large loan being used during a recession to make charitable donations rather than to invest in marketing or productivity enhancements.”

Then Huntsman proceeded to make a stunning announcement. He intended to leave the world in the same manner in which he came into it, totally broke — by donating his entire $2 billion fortune to cancer research and other worthwhile causes.

This was a special teachable moment for the millions of viewers throughout the country.  

4. The gift of spontaneous selflessness.  

There is one additional act of caring for others that goes beyond the giving of your love, time, knowledge and talents, or money. And that is going the extra mile to help someone, possibly even a stranger, on a spontaneous basis. The natural tendency of many people is to be cautious before coming to the aid of someone they don’t know. This is understandable with all the crime and legal issues we have in our society.   However, there is something inspiring about people who instinctively give of themselves without becoming paralyzed with uncertainty or fear. Wesley Autrey is one such person. What he did on Tuesday afternoon January 2, 2007 at a New York City subway station was almost beyond belief.

While standing on a subway platform, Autrey watched in horror as 20-year-old Cameron Hollopeter fell off the platform between the tracks. Apparently suffering from a seizure, Cameron was unable to move. When Autrey saw the rapidly approaching train headlights in the tunnel, without hesitating, he jumped off the platform and shoved the disoriented student into the only space where they had a chance to survive — the shallow, grimy drainage trough between the tracks. There Audrey pinned Hollopeter in the trough by lying on top of him, face to face.   After the incident, Autrey confessed that he had no idea whether there was enough space for the train to pass over them safely. He told one newspaper reporter, “I couldn’t just watch a train run over a man.” When the subway officials measured the depth of the space between the tracks, they were amazed to discover only about two feet of clearance from the train to the bottom of the trough, meaning that the train passed over the top of the two men by only one or two inches.   Having an attitude of spontaneous selflessness doesn’t necessarily mean putting your life on the line for others. This is an extreme example. What it does mean, however, is that your initial instinct when observing a person in difficulty is to find a way to help him or her.   In review, a “caring for others” spirit involves giving something of yourself to others that is valuable, such as your love, your time, your knowledge/talents, your money, or even your spontaneous assistance in a time of need.   The illustrations so far have focused on people sharing one of their “gifts” at a time. Certainly it is possible to share several “gifts” at the same time. It’s far more unusual, however, to share them all simultaneously. This is exactly what occurred when Dr. Muni Tahzib, a Hoboken, N.J. pediatrician, decided to help the unfortunate victims of the worst humanitarian crisis in decades — the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti. When her offer of service was rebuffed by several international relief organizations due to her lack of extensive field experience, Tahzib utilized Facebook to quickly form a team of 17 doctors, nurses, and technicians. In just a matter of days she and her team arrived in Port-au-Prince with a load of medical supplies, food, and water. There she became a part of an extraordinary volunteer relief effort that included thousands of people like Tahzib who dropped everything in their lives to respond to the crisis with their love, time, knowledge and talents, and money to help those in desperate need. As the title of the lead article in the February 28, 2010 issue of Parade Magazine boldly proclaimed, “This is What Being Human is all about!”

Most people have the capacity to enhance the “C” in their lives even if they have not been fortunate enough to learn this trait early in life by emulating the behavior of respected adults, such as parents, relatives, teachers, and coaches. with Executive Leadership Development Program you will learn to be an effective leader and gain leadership qualities.

If caring for others is not your strong suit, it is not too late to change for the better. As in acquiring any other positive behavior in life, you have to first make a commitment to change. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best: “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

For many leaders making such a commitment is difficult - especially if they are in the habit of frequently judging others. For such leaders to acquire a “caring for others” spirit they first must work at accepting people for who they are and not getting “hung up” with negative thoughts about their inadequacies. A former colleague of mine once told me that “All people are like round dowels with a flat side and that our role in life is to accept such people despite their flat sides (inadequacies).”

The practice of judging people in an effort to prove our own self-worth gets in the way of accepting others for who they are. If we can somehow overcome this tendency, we are able to move on to the next step in the process of acquiring a “caring for others” spirit.

This step involves practicing specific acts of caring to the point that you do them without even thinking about it. This is accomplished by pushing yourself to act in a compassionate manner time after time. Start by being on the lookout each and every day for ways to help others in small ways. John Wooden, one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time, has a philosophy that every day he is supposed to help someone who can never reciprocate. If you open your eyes and heart to the concept of having a “caring for others” spirit, you will be amazed at the opportunities that await you for helping those who cannot help themselves. The opportunities are everywhere if you just look! It may be as simple as assisting an elderly person struggling to cross a busy street before the light changes, holding the elevator for someone approaching in a wheel chair, offering to exchange seats with another passenger on an air flight so a family can sit together, or providing encouraging words to a new employee who appears overly stressed.

Most people can relate to the experience of having been stuck in a long line at a store checkout counter because the cashier was obviously new to the job. When this happens to you again, view it as an opportunity to demonstrate a “caring for others” spirit by remaining calm and, if necessary, reminding the others in line about how they must have felt when they were a new employee. And when it is your time to check out, offer some kind words of encouragement to the trainee.

At work, demonstrate a “caring for others” spirit to employees suffering from serious illness or grief over the loss of a loved one. Even if you have many people in your organization, set up a system that ensures you are notified about such happenings in a timely fashion. Then respond personally in an appropriate manner that demonstrates that you really do care. For example, if a spouse of an immediate staff member passes away, attend the funeral and express your heartfelt sympathy to the family. Or, if one of your associates is hospitalized, pay that person a visit or call him or her. For employees further down in the organization who are hospitalized or suffering grief, send a card with a personal note. Whatever you do, avoid using e-mail or texting, even if the employee is located thousands of miles away. The point is that you act in some appropriate manner to help soothe the pain of the people you are responsible for. Your gesture of doing something tangible speaks louder than words. It says, “I care and appreciate you!" 

Although the most important thing is the willingness of the leader to give of himself or herself to others, it also matters a great deal how the “gifts” are delivered. For example, the “gift” of a leader’s time and talent in coaching a subordinate is substantially depreciated if it is given in an insensitive or disrespectful manner. Over the years I have seen this happen on a number of occasions. One day I overhead a manager severely berating an employee in the hallway for something she had done. Although the boss was giving her time in an effort to teach the person something, the approach was ineffective because it was so demeaning. I doubt the employee learned anything from the session except to dislike the boss even more.

“Caring for others” leaders act in certain ways that demonstrate that they truly value people.

Some of these ways include the following:

• Listening attentively.

 • Being respectful.

• Keeping promises.

• Insuring fairness and equity.

• Recognizing good work.

• Emphasizing personal growth and development.

• Subordinating

self-interest to that of the organization and the employees. Another way to become a more caring person is to open your senses to the people around you. When you observe a person who is obviously bearing a heavy burden, send that person a positive mental thought - what I call a positive “vibe.” Recently, on a visit to see family in central Illinois, I was picking up the Wall Street Journal at a drug store when I saw a man in a wheelchair making his way through the pelting sleet from the parking lot to the store entrance. I recall sending him the thought that “he would continue to have the courage to endure his obviously difficult life.” I am convinced that there is considerable power in such positive “vibes.” The more you do it, the more sensitive you will become to the needs of others.

In short, you can enhance your “caring for others” spirit by making it a practice to think more of others and then acting to help those in need. If you consistently do this, it will not be long until unselfish, caring behavior becomes one of your strong suits.

In summary, the best measure of the life of a person is the positive impact that he or she had on the lives of others. The positive impact comes from thinking of others as much as you do of yourself and from freely sharing your gifts of love, time, knowledge and talents, and money with those in need.

Todays modern life style requires us to self to assess each one to become an expert, overwhelming self help courses to executive leadership programs, unless you develop a self assessment strategy all will not imporve your confidence in your self. you can improve your ability to outperform in the office when you can assess your learning and applying the same for career progression.

“Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.” (W. Edwards Deming)

I was inspired by the book “Pragmatic Thinking and Learning” by Andy Hunt that I’ve read not so long ago and so I decided to write this post which you may say it is almost a review of this book. My intention with this is to show you how you could improve your ability of learning, which is required specially to software developers considering that we need to learn constantly not only technical stuff but also problems domains, and doing this is extremely hard and tiring. I personally think that the common developer (and may not be only developers) overlook this topic. Learning is a skill as programming and riding a bicycle is and so it deserves attention, training, reflection, etc.

First of all we need to understand our behaviour, and a good way of doing it is to go through a model of expertise: the Dreyfus model. It proposes a skill acquisition model and a way to move from beginning levels to mastery of a skill (aka being an expert). After that, we need to understand better our mind to then be able to find ways to learn effectively and catch cognitive biases. Even though I’m not an expert I’ll try to write about how our mind works (and how it doesn’t), learning techniques and ways to improve usual activities like reading. With time I’d like to have here a nice list of techniques, tips and habits about learning.

The Dreyfus Model

It is a model of how people acquire skills through instruction and practicing. The model, developed by the brothers Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus in 1980 (original report here), proposes that a student normally goes through five developmental stages from novice to mastery. It argues that any training procedure must acknowledge the student skill level to address it appropriately, and so, enabling faster progress. Below is a list of the five stages.

Novice

A novice has little or no previous experience in the skill area. Novices don’t know if their actions will reach the desired result, and they don’t necessarily want to learn; they just want to accomplish their tasks. Although vulnerable to problems, a novice can be relatively effective if he or she is given a context-free set of rules to follow; they need recipes. Novices can be good with rules, but they don’t know which rule (or rules) is relevant in every scenario; they can’t see the big picture and take the context into consideration. Recipes have the problem that it is impossible to specify everything, so then doubt will appear in complex scenarios (and even on simpler ones!). Recipes can’t take you very far.

Advanced Beginners

After tackling with some real problems and situations, an advanced beginner (or competent according to the original report) is able to recognize and cope with situations that he or she has already faced before, without context-free rules. An advanced beginner can try tasks on his or her own, but difficulty with troubleshooting is still a constant. An advanced beginner usually wants information fast, like someone scanning a new language documentation looking for some method, but unable to understand details of how that anonymous function works or what “passing arguments by reference or by value” means. An advanced beginner doesn’t want the big picture and would probably dismiss it as it is irrelevant to his or her task.

Competent

By facing more problems and real world situations, a practitioner becomes competent at something. The relevance of situations is perceived regarding the long-term goal. A competent practitioner can break free from the context-free rules and can start to troubleshoot problems on his or her own. They also can effectively apply expert’s advice. Competent practitioners are great people to have on your team and are usually found on leadership roles, however they still face context analytically and not holistically. Because of that, they have problems facing situations that they’ve faced before if tackled through different perspectives. According to Andy Hunt, they can’t effectively apply agile principles in the ideal way – there is simply not enough ability for reflection and self-correction, and this is a major consideration.

Proficient

Proficient practitioners make a major breakthrough on the Dreyfus model: they can self-correct. They can reflect not only on their previous results but also on others’ results and experiences. Someone at the proficient stage starts to take context holistically, seeking to understand the big picture. He or she can troubleshoot effectively and perceive deviations from the normal patterns and handle different perspectives of a problem. A proficient practitioner can apply software patterns effectively and he or she is also able take full advantage from agile practices. The proficient level is hard to reach - someone here is more like a junior expert than an advanced competent. It takes a lot of deliberate practice to be proficient at something.

Expert

This is the end of the line. Experts are the primary source of knowledge in any field. As modern wizards, they apply pattern matching and make decisions based on intuition (grounded by a vast array of experiences) instead of analytical thinking. Because of that they can’t explain their thought processes – it’s almost as they don’t know how they do it - it just feels right for them. Experts are extremely rare – statistically, less than 5% of the world population is expert in a field.

The path from novice to expert is long and complex and a lot of things change as your skill increases, but there are three major changes important to note:

• Moving away from reliance on rules to intuition.
• Taking context in consideration, therefore seeing problems not as a collection of bits but instead as a whole.
• Start to see ourselves not as detached observers but instead as part of the system.

Below are two tables made by Dr Stan Lester with characteristics of every level.

As showed in the Table 2, people from different skill levels must be treated differently. An expert needs details and can’t take constraints, but novices should be given context-free rules and are disastrous when not supervised. Treating everyone in the same way isn’t a wise decision - Andy Hunt gives us a nice analogy about that: it’s like “herding racehorses” when applying iron-clad rules to experts and “racing sheeps” when you send novices to face a problem on their own.

The model is also important when studying on your own: it makes no sense to tackle big and difficult problems when you have a skill at a level below proficient - challenges must be carefully picked in order to maximize the learning process. In the next post (that hopefully will be ready in a week) I’ll write about the best way of improving a skill on your own that is through deliberate practice. Besides that, I intend to write about how to enhance sensorial input and I’ll also try to explain how to improve common learning methods (like reading) as well as some not-so-common learning techniques like mind maps.

Not every employer and employee has to think of performance reviews with the same dread as an appointment with the dentist.

It doesn't have to be confrontational. It doesn't have to be unpleasant. It doesn't have to be viewed as merely a way to avoid any potential litigation from dissatisfied or dismissed employees.

There are actually business benefits to be gained from instituting a program of evaluating employees on a regular basis.

The performance review process is an opportunity for supervisors and staff members to take time out from the daily business grind to discuss longer-range issues and plans. This is beneficial for the business because it allows leaders to spell out their expectations from employees, establish goals, and hear feedback from the rank and file.

This opens up communication between employees and managers. At the same time, managers can use performance reviews to help further business goals -- for example, by motivating employees to try to increase productivity or sales.

Traditionally, many companies have employed employee reviews to reinforce good work performance while, at the same time, seeking to better the work of under performers.

The underlying basis also provides a foundation for documenting measures on which to base pay increases, promotions, or punitive actions -- such as documenting grounds for dismissal.

In order to realize benefits, it's important for employers to get in the right mindset and understand their goals for the employee review process.

The most common use of the performance review process is to document past performance. However, an emerging trend is an employee development review. The employee development review looks to the future. These reviews typically include information about past performance but have a heavier emphasis on career development, specific job and personal goals, and areas of personal growth.

"Some HR administrators view the process as a way to make sure we have ourselves covered in the case of litigation," Helmlinger says. "My objective when I do a review is to state what a person has accomplished against a set of objectives and then make it a forward-looking process. What is it that we need to accomplish from a company standpoint? What are your own personal objectives? And incorporate a career-development component -- what do you want to do next?"

Business leaders also need to determine what type of review process to implement.

There are different types of employee reviews

Top-down review.

This performance review is conducted by someone above the employee in rank at the company -- this could mean a direct supervisor, manager of a business unit, executive, or all of the above.

Putting a direct supervisor in charge is often the most effective way to assess an employee's performance and provide valuable feedback as to how they can improve. In larger organizations, these reviews are sometimes filled out by line supervisors and then conducted by human resources personnel.

Either way, the review often culminates in a discussion regarding achievement of pre-determined goals.

Peer review.

In this case, employees are evaluated by co-workers.

The benefit of this type of review is that peers at the same level as the employee understand the challenges better than someone judging performance from the top down. The risk is that rivalries can alter performance reviews, if jealous co-workers review each other more critically, particularly if they are in competition for promotion or pay raises.

360-degree review.

Literally, in a 360-degree review, employees are evaluated from all angles -- above, below, and sideways.

That means supervisors, peers, subordinates, and even sometimes customers put in their two cents about the employee. These types of reviews are often spear-headed by the human resources department and those giving input are usually allowed to remain anonymous. Critics of 360-degree reviews say that anonymity can pave the way for excessive -- and sometimes vindictive -- criticism and ultimately leave the employee who is the subject of the review feeling under attack.

Self assessment.

The employee self-assessment can be used in conjunction with any of the other review processes listed above.

Some companies have found this very useful in that it can help cue managers as to areas in which an employee can improve and may benefit from training. It can also allow the employee to undertake some constructive criticism and be more willing to receive feedback from a manager.

Employees, in fact, can sometimes be harder on themselves than their managers are. But the downside is that an employee's view of their performance sometimes might diverge greatly from a manager's view, which presents challenges in the review process