The changing role of manufacturing has ushered in an increasing number of initiatives aimed at improving operations. Specifically, various themes in operations have evolved over time, from forecasting and planning in the 1950s and 1960s through productivity and quality in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, to adaptability and responsiveness in the 1990s. Even though the emergence of agile paradigm had spurred a large stream of research by scholars, yet most of the research had been at the manufacturing level. Very few researches have gone beyond the manufacturing level to the larger supply chain level. And there are even fewer researches discussing about the combination of lean thinking and agile thinking in supply chain level. Based on the above statement, the purpose of this study is as follows: 1. To identify the definition and characteristics of ¡§Lean¡¨ and ¡§Agile¡¨. 2. To explore the relationship of the two kinds of thinking. 3. To prove the practicability of the findings. This research is organized as follows. Chapter 2 clearly describes the origin, definition and characteristics of lean thinking and agile thinking, and comparison of the two kind of thinking. Chapter 3 introduces the major combination factors of these- material decoupling point, information decoupling point, and postponement. Followed by introduction of three practical ways to combine the lean thinking and agile thinking.

The main purposes of the study were to (A) analyze the relationships between teachers¡¦ demongraphic variables, professional growth motivation and their implement of open education, and (b) to investigate the relationships between teachers¡¦ implement of open education and their pupils¡¦ critical- and creative-thinking abilities. The participants included 101 teachers and 556 students in elementary schools from kaosiung city and Tainan city. This is a two-stage study. The instruments employed at the first stage were The Appraisal of Teaching for Elementary School Teachers and The Questionnaire for Teachers¡¦ Professional Growth, and those employed at the second stage were the revised edition of the Test of Critical-thinking Skills for Primary and Secondary school Students and the new edition of the Test of Creative Thinking. The applied analysis methods included descriptive statistics, Hotelling¡¦s T2, multivariate analysis of variance, and multiple stepwise regression. The results of the study were as follows: 1. The teachers¡¦ teaching experience had positive effects on their implement of open education. 2. The teacher who graduated from general universities did not have higher degree of implementing open education than those who graduated from normal universities. 3. The teachers¡¦ professional growth motivation had positive effects on their implement of open education. 4. The teachers¡¦ experiences of participating workshops about open education had positive effects on their implement of open education, while their experiences of general in-service study had not. 5. The teachers¡¦ professional growth motivation, experiences of participating workshops of open education, and experiences of in-service study could effectively predict their degree of implementing open education. 6. The teachers¡¦ degree of implementing open education had positive effects on their students¡¦ critical- and creative-thinking abilities.

The lack of the teaching of scientific critical thinking is seen as a major problem in the American educational system by many current educators, theorists, and researchers. Using Introductory Psychology students as subjects, the present study attempted to improve these skills by teaching students using new research method materials as part of classroom instruction. The students were measured with a test developed for the study. The new materials were found to improve students' scientific critical thinking ability over students in courses not using the new materials. These materials can be helpful in improving students' ability to evaluate scientific claims presented in the media. / Department of Psychological Science

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tennessee Technological University, 2007. / Bibliography: leaves 49-55.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Claremont Graduate University, 2007. / Adviser: Mary S. Poplin. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1947. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-210).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Education, June 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

This one-semester pretest-posttest case study of 3rd and 5th year female preservice teachers at the University of Victoria in British Columbia (N = 8) involved teaching for critical thinking and an evaluative view of knowledge in elementary social studies. Philosophical and psychological perspectives of critical thinking provided an evaluative view of knowledge, intellectual resources, and cognitive tasks for responses to critical challenges about belief and action (Bailin, Case, Coombs, & Daniels, 1993; Facione, 1991; Siegel, 1992). This integrated conception of critical thinking guided instruction, instrument selection, and interpretation of qualitative evidence. Instruction utilized an interactive constructive approach that involved social and pedagogical challenges appropriate to adults students but related to the elementary social studies curriculum. Multiple measures of critical thinking dispositions, view of knowledge, and argument proficiency revealed moderate dispositional strength toward critical thinking, mixed views of knowledge, mixed argument proficiency, and small positive gains over the duration of instruction. Pretest-posttest measures included Facione and Facione's (1992) California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI), Kuhn's (1991) interview protocol for view of knowledge and argument proficiency, and a written argument paralleled the posttest interview evidence. Most changes aligned with the nature of instruction and instrumentation. CCTDI entry-level results were aligned with results reported for samples from other college and university studies whereas exit-level results displayed more positive change than reported in other studies. Posttest views of knowledge were mixed (evaluativists = 4, multiplists = 1, absolutists = 3), largely consistent with the pretest, and exhibited more evaluativism than reported in other studies. Proficiency in argument was somewhat less than found in other studies, but increased slightly, particularly the generation of alternative theories over the duration of the study. Compared with interviews, written arguments revealed stronger rebuttals and somewhat weaker use of evidence. Inconsistencies across qualitative results and formal results aligned with the nature of the instruction, assessment tasks, evaluation criteria, and some problematic aspects of instrumentation. Participants stated that interactive constructivism; justification of ideas against explicit criteria, an early emphasis on developing a rationale for teaching to an evaluative view of knowledge; the use of examples, non-examples, and borderline examples to generate criteria for key ideas; and instructor-student interaction to monitor and adjust instruction to maximize clarity were positive features of instruction. An excessive concept load and inadequate compatible prior learning experiences were identified as impediments to clarity. / Graduate

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics