Critical Thinking: Setting and Achieving Goals (70 points) 

The setting and achieving of goals is a critical part of leadership. A carefully designed plan is the key to the successful completion of organizational goals. Whether you are a leader or a follower you will be responsible for helping an organization to achieve its goals. Write a 900- to 1,200-word essay on the importance of developing plans to achieve organizational goals. You will need to write in the third person for this assignment. 

In your paper, address the following: 

 Discuss two types of planning that organizations use to assist in the achievement of goals. 

 Determine when each planning type is most appropriate to use. 

Incorporate references from at least two credible sources outside of this week’s readings to support your work. These sources should be peer-reviewed articles. The CSU-Global Library is a good place to find these sources. 

Refer to the handouts and templates you used for the first Critical Thinking assignment in Week 2 in developing your effective and well-formatted paper. Be sure your paper follows APA style according to the CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA Requirements. 

The requirements for your Project include the following:

• Must be 6-8 pages.
• Must include an introductory paragraph that describes the entire project.
• The project must have all of the following: identification of the
  alteration in health (disease), the role nutrition plays in the
  prevention of this disease, its etiology, progression, treatment,
  recommended diet, type of nursing assessment and nursing interventions
  needed with regard to nutrition, outline of what should be included in
  client education and two strategies to help ensure adherence (overcome
  barriers) to the recommended diet.
• Must have a title page and an APA Editorial formatted Reference
  page with at least three scholarly peer reviewed references. There must
  also be appropriate APA Editorial formatted in-text citations.

Administrator Observation and Interview

Conduct an observation of a school leader. Observe the following:

The leadership style of the school leader

The management style of the school leader

The communication style of the school leader

The rapport that the school leader has with students, parents, staff, and faculty

After completing the observation, interview the school leader to find out the following:

Type of leader the person would describe himself or herself as

Major challenges of his or her role

Rewards of his or her role

Advice that this person would share with someone who was a new administrator

Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper, summarize the findings of your observation and interview, and add a personal reflection on how the information shared was useful for your leadership development.

Use School Leadership and Administration: Important Concepts, Case Studies, & Simulations, Ninth Ed chapter 3,4,5

Read the following, then research any degenerative brain disease using the following link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/. Make sure you visit the designated links below. Write up a half page summary of your research and give the internet links where you found your information. Then, take at least 2 of your reference links and convert then to APA style references. Do not use one of those programs where you type in the information and it converts the information for you. Go to this link, it shows you exactly how to format your references: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/07/

Biological Foundations of Psychology

This chapter on neuronal anatomy excites some and bores others. I’m sure that you read about Phineas Gage, the railroad worker. Our ability to correlate what goes on inside our brain with outside behavior has improved phenomenally since his time. We are at an amazing time in history where researchers can have you think of a memory you actually had versus a memory you are fantasizing, and they can tell the difference, just by looking at an image of the brain. Now if I were just starting to study this topic, I might be wondering, “what good is this to me?” If you have children or plan to, you might want to know the optimum time to influence brain growth, and hence intelligence. Or, perhaps someone in your family has had a stroke or Alzheimer’s, and you’re wondering, “what part of the brain is damaged, and can it be repaired?” Or, “does smoking dope or drinking alcohol really hurt your brain?”

In addition to the material in the book, I want you to know that there are critical stages of brain growth. Some researchers have sewn the eyelid of kittens shut, then later removed the stitches when the cats were grown. What they found was that the eye was perfectly normal, but the cats could not see! For vision to work, the neural support for vision in the brain must receive stimulus at a critical stage of development. If it doesn’t, that part of the brain will die.

You see, you’re born with this tremendous neural infrastructure of 100 billion neurons, and almost immediately they begin dying off. It’s really the concept of “use it or lose it.” If a part of the brain receives sensory stimuli, the dendrites grow out and connect with other neurons (as many as 50,000 connections with other neurons are possible), creating a more efficient pathway for communication between neurons in the brain. And, if the stimuli isn’t received, well, then the neurons die.

The implication are particularly poignant when it comes to the matter of intelligence! A debate has raged for most of this century over how much of intelligence is inherited (nature) versus how much is learned (nurture). Finally, the research seems to support that at least part of intelligence is learned. But, there is probably a critical window (that “use it or lose it” period) which is mostly gone by age 5. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn. You can learn throughout your whole life, and learning will stimulate dendrites growing out to connect with other neurons. Brain plasticity, rewiring of the brain, can even occur during old age. But, if you want your child to be more intelligent (within genetic limitations), your need to start early.

Some research indicates that babies can recognize stories or music they were exposed to in utero. The dendrite connections are rather sparse at first. But this early stimuli causes them to grow and connect with other neurons, ensuring that the neuron will live rather than die off. If it should die, well, too bad! We really don’t grow new neurons ( some newer research indicates there may be an exception where new neurons grow in the hippocampus, effecting memory).

But how do you stimulate a baby’s brain? Any sensory input will help. Sound, sight, touch, taste and smell, will all stimulate brain growth and intelligence if done early enough. Glenn Doman has done a lot of research on this topic, particularly with the critical stages for helping brain injured children. Check out his website:

The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential

.I wish to clarify some points on the issue of brain imaging. While MRI’s and PET scans are the primary methods for looking inside a brain, they may have very different uses, depending on what we wish to find out about the brain. PET scans show function while an MRI will show structure. If you have just had a stroke, and the blood supply to a part of the brain is blocked, the structure may look perfectly OK until the tissues starts to die. But, if we are measuring function, then we can see immediately that that part of the brain has stopped working and then proceed to reestablish blood supply. Functional MRI’s are gradually becoming available, and these can show both function and structure.

Visit this page and watch this video: http://www.amenclinics.com/the-science/see-the-process/

Visit this page and look at examples of how drug abuse can change a brain: http://www.amenclinics.com/the-science/spect-gallery/alcohol-and-drug-abuse/

This is an extremely important source of information that will be discussed further in class: http://oursecuredev.com/ranklab/ac/the-science/spect-gallery/functional-neuroanatomy/http://www.cabrillo.edu/~jtice/HSERV%20162/Brain-Supplement[1].pdf

English 102: Persuasive Essay

Genre: Argument Length: 3-5 pages Format: MLA Textbook: See “Readings” section below

Assignment Write a persuasive essay that aims to convince the reader to support a non-profit organization of your choice. Locate the non-profit organization’s website and gain background knowledge on their work. The website is the only outside source required for this essay. No other outside sources should be used to compose your essay. You must include one direct quote, paraphrase, and summary (each with an in-text citation) from the website. You will also include a Works Cited page. Utilize the readings and outline template to gain knowledge on the structure of argument.

Prewriting First, identify one social issue that is important to you and locate a reputable non-profit organization focused on the issue. For example, if you are interested in supporting the education of homeless youth, you may consider the organize A Child’s Place out of Charlotte, NC (http://www.achildsplace.org/). You most likely have many non-profit organizations in your area or a non-profit organization that you have supported for a long time.

Once you have chosen the issue and organization, visit their website. The organization’s website must include enough information so that you can understand their mission, importance of their work, and how to support their work.

Next, begin to construct your argument. As you write, remember that your mail goal is to convince the reader to support this organization, not to summarize their website. Avoid unnecessary summary. Creating an outline for this essay (see printable template in Blackboard) will help organize the body of your essay. Each main point in your outline should be original and should support your thesis statement. Each main point in your outline will become a body paragraph in your essay.

Introduction As always, the introduction should include necessary background information. For this essay, the background information should include the organization’s name and a brief summary of their history and mission. As the introduction narrows towards the thesis, remember that you are presenting only one argument: why the reader should support the non-profit organization you have chosen. Review the “Roadmap” section of chapter 11 and p. 383-387 for helpful tips on constructing a persuasive thesis.

Body Paragraphs Each body paragraph for this essay should introduce, explain, and support (i.e. present the argument for) one main point. Since you are only incorporating one source for this essay, each main point with support must come from you—this means you are utilizing your rhetorical skills

to persuade your audience, so incorporate plentiful detail (including examples) to develop each body paragraph.

Conclusion The concluding paragraph for this essay should:  Wrap up your argument by answering any unanswered questions  Reinforce the importance of supporting the non-profit organization you selected

Source Incorporating direct information from the website is important, as well. You must include at least one direct quote, one paraphrase, and one summary. Each of these must include an in-text citation. Remember that direct quotes, paraphrases, and summaries should always be concise and add to your essay. They are not a way to fill space, but a way to vary your method of incorporating support. Incorporating this single source add to your credibility as an author. Readings There are many readings in the textbook that will help you throughout this process:  Ch. 11 – Argument  P. 383-387 – Thesis statements  P. 512-524 – Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing  Ch. 27 – MLA format o In-text citation information begins on p. 538 o Referencing online sources begins on p. 556  Remember that you are only allowed to include one source for this essay: the non-profit website, so you will only include one entry on the Works Cited page