Critical ThinkingStudents could select two companies from the

Critical Thinking
Students could select two companies from the Global 100 and
compare how various companies approach the subject of social
responsibility. Students could investigate 2 companies and
prepare a report.
The Global 100 is a group based in Canada that rates companies
globally on a sustainability index: http://www.global100.org/
https://www.corporateknights.com/rankings/global-100-
rankings/2022-global-100-rankings/100-most-sustainable-
corporations-of-2022
Pointers for student’s reference-
Report must include-
*Introduction (250 words-2 Marks)
*Identify its key stakeholders (350 words-3 Marks)
*Critically analyse its CSR report (500 words- 4 Marks)
*Conclusion (150 words- 1 Mark)
Basic requirement for the Assignment
· Title is compulsory
· Peer reviewed journals and References should be used to
support your submission
Note for students: Only covering these pointers for the essay
will not guarantee awarding of full marks, please do your
research well and include other content too. These pointers are
just to guide you.
Instructions for preparing the Assignment:
· All students are encouraged to use their own words.

· Use Saudi Electronic University academic writing standards
and APA style guidelines.
· Use proper referencing (APA style) to reference, other styles
will not be accepted.
· Support your submission with course material concepts,
principles, and theories from the textbook and at least two
scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles unless the assignment
calls for more.
· It is strongly encouraged that you submit all assignments into
the safe assignment Originality Check prior to submitting it to
your instructor for grading and review the grading rubric to
understand how you will be graded for this assignment.
Today’s lesson: Self-directed learning . . . for teachers
William M. Ferriter and Nicholas Provenzano
November 1, 2013
Young educators are replacing professional development
sessions and
conferences with Twitter, blogs, and Edcamps as their preferred
ways to
learn and share new ideas.
Feeling frustrated by the lack of professional innovation around
him, Nicholas

Provenzano made a life-altering decision in January 2010: He
started a blog and
signed up for a Twitter account.
“I’m a 30-year-old English teacher who is currently working on
my master’s
degree in educational technology,” Provenzano wrote in the first
post on his
blog, The Nerdy Teacher. “I spend tons of time helping other
teachers in my
building to incorporate technology into their teaching and
thought it would be
nice to share these new concepts with the world out there. . . . If
you have any
thoughts or ideas you would like to share, please feel free to
email me or post a
comment. Let’s see where this thing takes us” (Provenzano,
2010).
Three years later, “this thing” has taken Provenzano to the
pinnacle of his
profession. He is a thought leader with nearly 30,000 followers
on Twitter — a
number that leaves him humbled every day. He is a critical
friend of educational
technology companies. He is an author and a consultant
providing guidance to
districts rethinking what today’s classrooms should look like.
This year, the
International Society for Technology in Education named him
its Outstanding
Teacher of the Year, an honor given to a practitioner who has
“demonstrated
outstanding achievement in and understanding of educational
technology
implementation.”

But if you ask Provenzano, he’ll tell you that what really
matters is that “this
thing” has given him the opportunity to develop relationships
with like-minded
peers. He sees himself as an average guy lucky enough to
stumble onto the power
of networked learning earlier than many of his colleagues. He
describes his
closest digital friends as family. “Social spaces aren’t about
followers,” he says.
“They are about connections — and my connections make me a
better teacher
and a better person every day” (Provenzano, 2012).
Avoiding these self-created intellectual echo chambers depends
on educators
who intentionally seek out dissenting voices to learn with.
Share this on
Networked learning has also pushed Provenzano’s practice in
ways that
traditional professional development couldn’t. Time spent
sharing on his blog,
learning from others on Twitter, and participating in
nontraditional education
conferences called Edcamps have left him constantly exposed to
new thinking. By
making connections with teachers around the world and seeking
professional
development specific to him, Provenzano has been able to grow
in the areas he
needed, not the areas his district decided the majority needed.

Personalization
has left Provenzano better prepared to help every student in his
classroom.
For example, Provenzano devised a project for his students at
Grosse Pointe
South High School in Michigan that connected students across
time zones with
Van Meter High School in Iowa to explore and discuss
Shakespeare’s “Romeo and
Juliet” in a new and exciting way. By using his connections on
Twitter,
Provenzano was able to find another teacher who shared his
passion for English
language arts and also was looking for a new approach to the
classic play. Their
students rewrote the play and filmed their own version that was
webcast across
the globe during a joint world premiere. Throughout the project,
members of
Provenzano’s network provided conceptual guidance and
technical support,
giving him the courage and skill necessary to create a new
learning opportunity
for his students.
The ‘adjacent possible’
Provenzano’s growth in response to the intellectual challenge
provided by peers
in new learning spaces mirrors the slow, steady innovation that
happens in the
natural world. Theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman calls this
evolutionary
progress responding to the “adjacent possible.” Detailing the
adjacent possible in

his book Where Good Ideas Come From, author Steven Johnson
says the adjacent
possible tells us:
[T]hat at any moment the world is capable of extraordinary
change, but
only certain changes can happen. The strange and beautiful
truth about the
adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore
those boundaries . . .
Think of it as a house that magically expands with each door
you open. You begin
in a room with four doors, each leading to a new room that you
haven’t visited
yet. Those four rooms are the adjacent possible. But once you
open one of those
doors and stroll into that room, three new doors appear, each
leading to a brand-
new room that you couldn’t have reached from your original
starting point. Keep
opening new doors, and eventually you’ll have built a palace
(Johnson, 2010, pp.
363, 372).
Provenzano and thousands of teachers just like him are
exploring the boundaries
of their practice together on Twitter, in blogs, and at seminars,
and they
represent a new generation of educators who are actively
redefining how
innovation occurs in the schoolhouse.

Starting with Twitter
For many of these educators, exposure to adjacent possibilities
— the first step
toward innovation — starts in the strangest of places: Twitter.
The frequently
misunderstood service that enables users to post short public
messages to the
web is often seen as nothing more than a digital home for
attention-starved
celebrities and political egomaniacs.
But ask around the next faculty meeting, and you’ll find
practitioners who swear
that the service has become the cornerstone of their professional
learning. As
John T. Spencer (@edrethink), a 6th-grade teacher in Arizona
and Kappan’s
Teacher columnist, explains, “Twitter is where I go when I want
to talk to teacher
friends who are also trying to do project-based learning in
environments that are
test-obsessed. . . . It’s also a place where people challenge my
groupthink and
push me to rethink my practice” (Spencer, 2012).
At the most basic level, Twitter allows users to curate content
for one another.
Drawing from a collection of over 500 education specific
hashtags, thousands of
practitioners are posting links, blog entries, and lesson plans at
any given time.
Want to learn more about project-based learning? Visit Twitter
and search
for #pblchat. Care about school leadership? Try #cpchat or
#edleaders. Teach

elementary school? Your digital colleagues are using #elemchat
to organize.
Twitter can become much more than a tool for simple sharing,
though.
Connected educators recognize that behind every profile picture
is a person
walking through similar professional doors. Following other
teachers — a one-
click commitment that makes important content easier to find by
delivering
updates directly to a Twitter user’s homepage — can start long-
term
relationships with thoughtful peers who are willing to serve as
professional
sounding boards whether they know you in “the real world” or
not.
Teachers who use Twitter to build professional networks often
want to learn
more about and from the people they interact with online. Doing
so means
embracing RSS feed readers, which educational leadership
expert Scott McLeod
(@mcleod) calls the most important tool you probably don’t
know (McLeod,
2011). Like DVRs, RSS feed readers are free web-based tools
that automatically
https://twitter.com/edrethink
https://twitter.com/hashtag/PBLChat?src=hash
https://twitter.com/hashtag/cpchat
https://twitter.com/hashtag/edleaders
https://twitter.com/hashtag/elemchat

retrieve new posts from frequently updated blogs for users,
making it possible to
explore the thinking of other practitioners from one online
home. Filling feed
readers with the blogs of peers that they follow in other social
spaces allows
connected educators to think deeply with one another —
something that isn’t
always possible in an ever-changing Twitter stream.
Symbiotic relationships
The relationship that develops between blog writers and their
regular readers is
symbiotic. Writers publish thinking designed to challenge their
peers, and peers
push back in the comment sections of posts, helping writers
refine their initial
positions. Over time, this intellectual give-and-take strengthens
the
understandings and professional relationships between authors
and their
audiences.
Once practitioners discover that social spaces can make
customized learning
possible and that informal relationships developed online can be
powerful, their
view of what education conferences should look like changes.
Instead of
accepting that conferences have to be expensive corporate-
sponsored events,
connected educators have started holding their own reimagined
teaching
conferences called Edcamps. Proudly touted as
“unconferences,” Edcamps are

almost always hosted on school campuses, planned by teams of
teachers who
have grown to know one another online, and free to attend.
Unlike traditional conferences that can inadvertently stifle
innovation by lining
up predetermined slates of sessions months in advance,
Edcamps start with
blank agendas. While participants arrive, practitioners use
sticky notes to
suggest ideas for sessions. Once strands of interest start to take
shape, popular
topics are identified, meeting rooms are assigned, and
facilitators volunteer to
lead individual sessions. After the agenda has been filled,
teachers select the
topics they want to learn more about. Edcamps are different
because
presentations are openly discouraged. Instead, sessions are
designed to be
conversations between like-minded peers. “Attendees are called
participants
because sessions are expected to be interactive, not simply one
person standing
at the front of the room lecturing while the audience passively
listens and
struggles to stay awake,” explained instructional technologist
Jennifer Scheffer
(@jlscheffer) after attending her first Edcamp in the spring of
2013 (Scheffer,
2013).
In a sense, unconferences are physical representations of the
self-directed,
evolutionary learning that takes place in social spaces like
Twitter. Highly

motivated participants give up personal time to connect over
topics that are
relevant to them. Edcamp Cincy organizer M.E. Steele-Pierce
(@steelepierce), a
https://twitter.com/jlscheffer
https://twitter.com/steelepierce
retired Ohio educator, says the personal, social, and voluntary
nature of the
learning at Edcamps mirrors the changing nature of learning in
today’s
connected world. “Unconferences matter,” she writes, “because
they harness the
power of authentic learning” (Steele-Pierce, 2011).
Unconferences are also physical opportunities for educators to
meet digital peers
for the first time. Relationships that start online are cemented in
person, and
relationships cemented in person continue in digital networks
long after
unconferences end. “One of the most powerful aspects . . . was
online community
turned real community — that in 140 characters on Twitter, bit
by bit, you create
connections with other educators,” said Carolyn Foote
(@technolibrary), a
librarian in Texas, as she reflected on nontraditional teaching
conferences. “When you meet them, it’s like you are just
picking up the
conversation where you left off, not like meeting them for the
first time” (Foote,
2008).

Harness the power of connections
Educators who have embraced new learning spaces often display
a passionate
commitment to the tools, the process, and their peers. Some
have said they learn
more in shorter time periods in their Twitter stream or at
Edcamps than hours in
professional development sessions. So what is it that makes
social spaces and
unconferences powerful forums for spreading innovation?
Instead of signing up for staff development sessions scheduled
weeks in advance,
advice in social spaces is literally a Tweet, a blog post, or an
unconference away.
Share this on
The answer is that innovation happens when minds come
together to share
ideas. Traditionally, that sharing required people to be in the
same place at the
same time. Today, sharing ideas can happen anytime, anywhere.
Whether they
are poking through Twitter streams on smartphones before the
morning bell
rings, reading blog entries on iPads while sitting in waiting
rooms, or extending
conversations started at unconferences on laptops while
unwinding after a long
day of work, digitally connected teachers are tapping into what
Clay Shirky and
Dan Pink call “the great spare time revolution.” As Shirky
explains:

Somehow, watching television became a part-time job for every
citizen in the
developed world. But once we stop thinking of all that time as
individual minutes
to be whiled away and start thinking of it as a social asset that
can be harnessed,
it all looks very different. The buildup of this free time among
the world’s
educated population — maybe a trillion hours per year — is a
new resource. It’s
what I refer to as the cognitive surplus (Wired, 2010).
https://twitter.com/technolibrary
New learning spaces are also personalized. Instead of sitting in
staff
development sessions designed to deliver one message to entire
faculties,
practitioners learning in new social spaces are exploring their
own professional
boundaries, customizing their learning in a way impossible to
replicate in
traditional settings.
Finally, new learning spaces provide teachers with instant
answers to questions
and instant access to up-to-date information curated by
practitioners with
expertise. Teachers with a strong network of digital colleagues
— or a spare
Saturday morning to spend at an Edcamp — can get support for
any challenge.
Instead of signing up for staff development sessions scheduled
weeks in advance,
advice in social spaces is literally a Tweet, a blog post, or an

unconference away.
Challenges of being connected
As powerful as the changing nature of innovation has been,
practitioners who
embrace new learning spaces need to be aware of the following
pitfalls.
Balance: The greatest challenge for teachers drawn to social
spaces or
unconferences is recognizing that personalization —
customizing streams of
information that resonate with our own vision for what teaching
and learning
should look like — can leave us with professional blind spots.
“By rights, the Internet should be doing more than anything else
to open our eyes
to new perspectives and experiences,” said technology writer
Allan Martin.
Instead, he adds, “We’re moving away from that: As the web
becomes
increasingly tailored to the individual, we’re more likely than
ever to be served
personalized content that makes us happy and keeps us clicking.
That happy
content is seldom anything that challenges our viewpoint, and
there’s a risk that
this distorts our view of the wider world outside our browser”
(Martin, 2013).
Avoiding these self-created intellectual echo chambers depends
on educators
who intentionally seek out dissenting voices to learn with. The
primary goal of

social spaces should be to challenge, instead of to simply
confirm, what we
already know and believe.
Accuracy: While the Internet has given everyone the power to
publish, no one is
actively policing content created for the web. As a result, ideas
that are poorly
researched or advanced by individuals with agendas can spread
quickly in
today’s connected learning ecology. That means teachers must
become critical
consumers of the information that they come across in any
learning space.
Recognition: Teachers also must note that most educators don’t
view learning in
social spaces or at unconferences as valid forms of profes sional
development. If
connected educators want this to change, they must
systematically document the
effect that nontraditional learning opportunities are having on
their practice.
Archiving individual Twitter messages or blog posts that led to
meaningful
changes in instruction can provide the tangible evidence that
districts need in
order to officially recognize time spent in networked spaces as
formal learning.
And if school leaders want this to change, they must understand
that professional
development isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Districts that

fear their chosen
professional development path will be undermined by new
learning spaces are
missing the bigger picture. Instead of squaring off against
Twitter, blogs, and
unconferences, districts should be partnering with the leaders of
new learning
spaces to create additional opportunities for their faculties to be
exposed to
innovative ideas.
Paying it forward
Nicholas Provenzano had a simple goal when he started
Tweeting and blogging:
He wanted to share what he knew about his classroom with the
world. In return,
the world has shared what it knows with him. Nontraditional
learning spaces
have allowed him to connect to individuals, ideas, and
opportunities that have
improved his practice. Provenzano is convinced that his new
skills would not
have developed within the traditional model of schoolhouse
innovation, where
his growth plan would have been determined by someone else,
his learning time
would have been scheduled months in advance, and his access
to ideas would
have been limited to the expertise of people he was learning
with in person.
Blogs, Twitter, and unconferences have let Provenzano regain
his intellectual
agency and take ownership over his professional growth.
There has never been a better time for educators to take

ownership of their
learning. Too often, educators are treated like students, argues
educational
consultant Dean Shareski (@shareski). “If we want students to
take ownership
of their learning,” he writes, “shouldn’t we want the same for
teachers?”
(Shareski, 2013). Preparing an ever-changing student population
for an ever-
changing world requires a highly skilled workforce. No teacher
can single-
handedly meet the demands of today’s classroom. Instead,
teachers must rely on
the expertise of others to improve their craft. And no school
system can single-
handedly meet the developmental needs of every teacher it
employs. With
shrinking budgets and more time dedicated to testing, districts
should instead
support practitioners who use new tools and spaces to find
sources for
intellectual challenge. Organizational capacity increases when
control over
learning is handed to motivated learners.
References
https://twitter.com/shareski
Foote, C. (2008, January 28). Picking up the conversation where
we left off. Not
So Distant Future.
http://futura.edublogs.org/2008/01/28/picking-up-the-
conversation-where-we-left-off/

Johnson, S. (2010). Where good ideas come from: The natural
history of
innovation. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
Martin, A. (2013, May 1). The web’s “echo chamber” leaves us
none the
wiser. Wired UK. www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-
05/1/online-
stubbornness
McLeod, S. (2011, September). The most important tool you
probably don’t
know. The School Administrator, 68 (8), 8.
Provenzano, N. (2010, January 2). The nerdy teacher. The
Nerdy
Teacher. www.thenerdyteacher.com/2010/01/nerdy-teacher.html
Provenzano, N. (2012, May 28). Where I am and how I got here.
The Nerdy
Teacher. www.thenerdyteacher.com/2012/05/where-i-am-and-
how-i-got-
here.html
Scheffer, J. (2013, May 6). Thoughts from an Edcamp rookie:
Educators
connecting and making progress. The Future of Educational
Leadership.
http://jennscheffer.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/thoughts-from-
an-edcamp-rookie-educators-connecting-and-making-progress/
Shareski, D. (2013, June 21). Professional development is not
that
complicated. Ideas and
Thoughts. http://ideasandthoughts.org/2013/06/21/professional -
development-

is-not-that-complicated/
Spencer, J. (2012, November 21). Twitter isn’t a tool. Education
Rethink. www.educationrethink.com/2012/11/twitter-isnt-
tool.html
Steele-Pierce, M.E. (2011, March 7). Unconference:
Revolutionary professional
learning. Powerful Learning
Practice. http://plpnetwork.com/2011/03/07/unconference-
revolutionary-
professional-learning/
Wired. (2010, May 24). Cognitive surplus: The great spare-time
revolution. Wired.
www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_pink_shirky/
CITATION: Ferriter, W.M. & Provenzano, N. (2013). Today’s
lesson: Self-directed
learning . . . for teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, 95 (3), 16-21.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/1/online-
stubbornness
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/1/online-
stubbornness
http://www.thenerdyteacher.com/2010/01/nerdy-teacher.html
http://www.thenerdyteacher.com/2012/05/where-i-am-and-how-
i-got-here.html
http://www.thenerdyteacher.com/2012/05/where-i-am-and-how-
i-got-here.html

http://ideasandthoughts.org/2013/06/21/professional -
development-is-not-that-complicated/
http://ideasandthoughts.org/2013/06/21/professional -
development-is-not-that-complicated/
http://www.educationrethink.com/2012/11/twitter-isnt-tool.html
http://plpnetwork.com/2011/03/07/unconference-revolutionary-
http://plpnetwork.com/2011/03/07/unconference-revolutionary-
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_pink_shirky/

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