Matthew Harrison

Traditional methods of supervision and appraisal often scare staff because these can sometimes be confrontational, prompt undue anxiety and be used as a manipulative tool to control teachers. This article argues for a change in focus - rejecting old notions of principal-led evaluations of teachers' work in favour of more collaborative and collegial methods. The challenge for school leaders - to engage all staff in meaningful and reflective professional development.

Improvements in information technologies over the years have given rise to new forms of flexible delivery with the potential to transform vocational teaching. But what is the impact of these digital environments, and how can we ensure they represent quality in delivery and assessment?

The research outlined in this paper examines the University experience and career-related aspirations of students in the first intake of a new three year, non-teaching degree in child care. The study revealed a perceptible difference between students' learning and career expectations and the teaching and learning objectives of the course. A majority of students enrolling in the child care degree cited an interest in working with children as their motivation for doing the course, yet the majority have stated teaching as a career goal and hence saw the child care degree as a way of gaining academic credit and transfer into a pre-service teacher education course. Rich data were obtained from students in a questionnaire and focus group discussion that, among other aspects, prompted the course designers' early reflection on teaching and learning methods used in the course. Thus, to tailor teaching and learning to better suit the learning and career needs of students, the study a) obtained student feedback after the first semester of a new degree course, and b) uncovered ways to make the degree more attractive to future students seeking a degree qualification in child care.

Strategic change management teams are commonplace in
contemporary organisations, but rarely are they strategic in their focus, processes or outcomes. Rather strategic change management teams have come to represent a new sort of management problem because they often tend to perpetuate poor management rather than strategic management. The purpose of this paper is to reinforce the importance of innovative, entrepreneurial and strategic practices in leading and managing organisational renewal.

This paper aims to reconceptualise the literature on learning organisations, fourth blueprint management and entrepreneurialism to develop the idea of a global learning network. This notion is used to highlight successful leadership and management practices used by a transnational organisation to respond to change in a way that fosters entrepreneurial action. The author has identified al-Qaeda as a pertinent and timely example through which to
examine this new perspective because of its unique culture and enabling structure that encourage
members to act as both ‘‘environmental scanners’’ and agents of influence in affecting change. The al-Qaeda case study illustrates how the four elements of metastrategic design
– namely: vision, identity, configuration, and action – can operate to sustain organisational learning and renewal for more conventional transnational organisations.