please consider a work-related decision that will need to be made soon at your educational organization. It should not be: A decision that involves personal, family, confidential, or non-education-related matters. A decision that only involves a yes/no answer or simple alternatives such as whether to hold next year’s play day outside or in the gymnasium. A decision that only involves you or very few people. A decision that can be made quickly. A decision that is not a major concern and has no consequences or only minimal consequences. It should be: A decision you will need to make while working in education or a decision that an acquaintance who works in education will need to make. A decision where there are multiple options being considered. A decision that will involve multiple stakeholders like administrators, teachers, parents, the community, etc. These are just suggested stakeholders. A decision that will take significant time to make successfully. A decision that is a major concern to all involved because it will have consequences in areas such as staffing, finances, ethics etc. These are just suggested areas. As you have learned thus far, professional standards, knowledge, skills, and attitudes will have a direct reflection on your area of specialization. Understanding the intricate details of these in your specialization will help you manage and address specific problems in diverse educational organizations. Does your discipline have a professional organization that sets standards for it? Go online to this organization’s website, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. and find examples of professional standards that apply to your discipline as well as knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Fill in the professional standards chart with your findings. Be sure to cite all the websites that you used in proper APA format. If you are not employed in education, you should use the area of education that an acquaintance works in and look up the professional standards, knowledge, skills, and attitudes for that area using appropriate websites and proper APA style. Length: 1 completed decision-making chart and 1 completed professional standards chart. References: The decision-making chart does not need references as it is a personal item. The professional standards chart requires you to give a reference for each website, Facebook page, LinkedIn page, etc. where you found information about the standards used in your area of specialization. Decision-Making and Professional Standards in Education Decision-making in education is complex because it is a diverse environment with many stakeholders, and decisions must sometimes be made on the spot without all the facts being immediately available. For example, an online university must decide whether to offer a new degree program without knowing for certain how popular it will be with students. The university would have the marketing team prepare a comparison of similar programs at competitors; a forecast of the employment outlook for graduates of that program; a financial analysis of the number of new full-time and adjunct professors needed, and a timeline to obtain approval of the program from the accreditor, market the program, and create the new courses. This will require meetings with all potential stakeholders so that no group is blindsided by a decision that may affect it. Just as you should always write an outline before composing a paper, so too should you create a diagram as you work on a multi-faceted decision. You may already be used to writing down your choices to help clarify the process; or, using imagery to visualize helps you reach a decision. It really depends on your learning style. Perhaps you have a system for managing your time. You might write a to-do list or make a graphic organizer showing upcoming events and the level of priority in different colors. To assist you in making the decision-making process easier, a prebuilt decision-making chart is being provided this week. You are familiar with the idea that professions have standards for the ethical conduct of their members – for example, in the practice of law, there are strict ethics and codes of conduct for how lawyers should behave in court, deal with money held in trust, maintain confidentiality, etc. In education, the purpose of finding professional standards is so that a school district looking to hire a new leader to bring about school improvement might have a ready-made checklist of desirable skills and attitudes that the successful candidate should possess. A teacher might refer to the website of a national organization like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics to find guiding principles, content standards, process standards, and resources. This week you will explore the professional standards that correspond to your area of specialization. You may even wish to follow the relevant professional organization’s posts or tweets on a regular basis.