create a strategic plan (10–12 pages) to improve collaboration between the agencies that are involved in homeland security and emergency response in your city. Be sure to describe how your plan will encourage agencies to work together and avoid turf wars with regard to information and jurisdiction.

For this assignment, the strategies and plans listed in the resources for this and the other units provide examples of plans that you may use as a template. Because of the page limit, it is unlikely that an entire strategic plan is achievable. Therefore, you should focus on preparing a collaboration annex to the plan that you select.

• You will again approach it from the perspective of an emergency planner for the real-world county that you have employed all term. (Again, please use a pseudonym when referring to this county.)
• Choose either an emergency operations plan or a subject-specific plan (such as pandemic influenza, school safety and preparedness, information sharing, establishing a fusion center, or any other reasonable topic).
• Locate an annex in any plan or strategy; it does not need to be the plan that you have selected to contribute to for this assignment.
• You are going to produce a collaboration annex to a plan that is used (actually or hypothetically) by your county.
  • Provide definitions and explanations for key terms, including interagency, partners, collaborative relationships, coordination, and team-building.
• Develop and describe 3–5 primary overarching objectives for collaboration and coordination. These are strategic and therefore conceptual; you will be more specific later.
  • These objectives should be as detailed as possible to include information as to why and how they should be pursued and achieved.
  • An example of an objective may be to seek consensus with the subsequent rationale for this, potentially including focusing the team on a single end state, permitting all partners to have some ownership on the plan’s elements or overall goals, or demonstrating respect for all partners’ perspectives.
    • These components must be fully explained.
• Identify at least ten stakeholders with whom the county will need to collaborate for this specific plan. Describe the following for each partner:
  • The specific capabilities that it brings to bear
  • Benefits that it will reap from collaboration
  • Challenges that collaboration or partnering will create for it
  • Points of contact for each partner agency
  • Any other information that you feel is relevant
• Educate prospective partners on methods that the county will use to promote collaboration.
  • Select or originally design at least four methods, programs or approaches designed to foster collaboration.
    • You have learned about some methods and can locate many more in available strategies and operating procedures, especially those focused primarily on interagency coordination.
    • You may choose methods from existing sources, design your own programs, or combine both forms; if you use a method from another source, you must properly reference it.
• Identify and describe at least three ways that partners will be incorporated into exercises; make these descriptions detailed, logical, and relevant to the success of this specific plan.
• Write a short summary wrapping up the intentions of your annex.

Be sure to reference all sources using APA style.

.doc file

Week Three Draft Assignment
Length
700 words (minimum length requirement)
Due
End of Week 3 (Sunday). Submit your work through the “Week Three Draft” submission
link.
Overview
This is the assignment that is going to take you from a collection of write-ups on
individual sources to an actual draft. It might be helpful to think of the
writing you’ve done thus far in the class as a set of research-project construction
materials. For example:
Week 1 introduction = foundation
Week 2 source write-ups
= building materials
Now you are going to prepare some binding agents (transitions! synthesis! see below…)
to bring everything together in the form of an actual draft of your research essay.
Be aware, though, that you are likely to find you also need more, or different, materials.
It is at the drafting stage that we often notice significant gaps or unanswered questions
in our research. We realize that more research is required–and possibly also refinement
of the original research question.
This kind of looping back is not a sign of trouble. Rather, it is a natural part of the
research writing process, which almost never follows a tidy straight line from idea
formation to source gathering to drafting.
Two of our Week 3 readings are of particular importance for the draft. One is the Week
3 assigned reading on Synthesis (https://info260.hcommons.org/synthesizing/), and the
other is the Week 3 Lecture on Transitions (http://info260.hcommons.org/?p=112 ). The
Synthesis lecture will help you begin thinking about how your ideas fit together, and how
best to arrange them. The Transitions lecture will help you think about how to signal
these relationships to readers.
For a reminder of what the finished product will look like, see the Final Research Project
specifications document on this assignment. Note, though, that no concluding
paragraph is required in the Week 3 draft (we will work on conclusions next week).
How to develop your work into a Week 3 draft
As the old saying goes, “there is more than one road to Rome.” Below, however, is an
approach that you will likely find helpful for transforming your week-one introduction,
week-two library report into the Week 3 Draft. If you are having trouble getting started or
are short on time, try tackling the items below one at a time. Also, if the order of tasks
below isn’t working for you, go ahead and jump around—whatever gets you started in
transforming the pieces you’ve been developing to this point in the class into a draft that
you can submit at the end of week 3.
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs” –Henry Ford
☐ Join all of your project-related work into a single document: the Week 1 Introduction,
and the Week 2 Library Research Report.
☐ Carefully review any revision recommendations you’ve received on your earlier work.
If substantive changes are needed (especially changes to the research question itself!),
you will want to attend to those first. If you are confused about any feedback
you’ve received from your instructor or classmates, get that confusion cleared up.
☐ Read/Re-read the assigned page on Synthesis and begin arranging your source
write-ups. You began the process of synthesis in week-two when you analyzed sources
in terms of how they spoke to your research question. Now return to these week-two
source write-ups and examine them carefully. What are the different components of
your inquiry that they help address? Which of the sources develop similar claims?
Which represent areas of debate within your inquiry? What are some similar or different
methodologies you see being employed to study issues related to your research
question? What similar or different values or priorities seem to be motivating the
research? Are there areas of strong consensus? Are there questions or sub-questions
that your sources downplay or ignore?
The idea here is to think about all of the different things you might say about your
sources in relation to one another. Jot down some notes (you might want to do this
directly on your document in a different colored font), and move paragraphs around so
that related ideas appear together. In some instances you may want to merge two
source write-ups into a single paragraph, or divide one write-up into two paragraphs.
☐ Are there gaps in the skeletal draft you’ve constructed that point to the need for more
research? If so, now is the time! Re-visit the strategies you practiced in Unit 2 (using
different databases, using one source to find others, etc.), and, as always, don’t hesitate
to contact a librarian if you are in need of research assistance (refdesk@nu.edu).
☐ Read/Re-read the unit-3 lecture on Transitions. Do you see how transitional phrasing
can be used to express the kinds of relationships among ideas that you’ve been
reflecting on? Take a look at the sample Final Research Project as well. Notice how the
author uses transitions to show his readers relationships between the sources he found
through his research. Note that he has synthesized his sources (he has identified
relationships, contradictions, gaps, etc.) and that each paragraph begins with a
sentence or two that make these relationships explicit for readers.
Again, synthesis—and the expression of synthesized ideas through carefullycrafted transitions—is the glue that holds the individual paragraph together and helps
them cohere as a single research project. Try writing some transitions that express the
relationships you’ve identified among your sources.
☐You attended to substantive revisions earlier in this process. Now is the time to attend
to any more localized matters your instructor or peers commented on at an earlier
stage, or that you’ve become aware of yourself upon reviewing your work. Take a look
at the minimum requirements for the rough draft. Is your draft on track to meet these
requirements? Revise as necessary. To get even more mileage out of this draft, check
what you have against the Final Research Project specifications and the grading
criteria. Strive to submit your best effort at this stage as a means of ensuring that the
feedback you receive from peers and your instructor will be feedback that you can use
(rather than a recitation of things you already know about and had intended to get to
later).
☐Check your work against the list of “Presentation Norms in academic papers” that
appears in the class lecture on Document
Design: https://info260.hcommons.org/document-design/
Example
The following annotated example calls attention to specific draft requirements:
https://info260.hcommons.org/annotated-sample-draf…
*Note that this example contains a chart. You may include visualizations, but they are
not required in a paper.
Grading of the Week 3 draft
Evaluation of the draft will be based on demonstrated draft-stage effort to fulfill project
specifications. Drafts that demonstrate an attempt to meet all of the specifications below
can potentially receive full credit (100%/A+) even if they do not yet meet the
specifications at the level required for the final version of the research project.
Specifications
Introduction communicates the research question, and this question matches the actual
content of the essay.
Essay emphasizes high-quality, relevant, scholarly sources
All body paragraphs focus on discussion of research findings and explain the
significance of these findings in relation to the research question.
Source identification* is correct, clear, and concise.
*Remember that, in ILR260, “source identification” means doing what journalists do
and explaining—briefly—who our sources are.
Sources are synthesized and paragraph transitions are used to signal relationships
between ideas.
Writing is clear and accessible to non-specialist readers.
Citation follows APA style (unless you’re a humanities major and have arranged to use
MLA).
Essay adheres to presentation norms of academic papers
Note: no conclusion is required at this stage. We’ll tackle the conclusion during Week 4.
Work that substantially deviates from the assignment requirements (for example, the
draft offers something other than analytical research writing, or it relies on sources
inappropriate to an academic research project, or it contains sentence-level problems
so serious as to prevent assessment of other aspects of the work) will receive partial or
no credit.
If you run into problems while working on your Draft during week 3, please ask for help!

Contextual factors play an integral role in the learning process. Outside factors, such as families, culture, socioeconomic dynamics, and family discipline routines, can have a profound effect on student development and readiness for learning. Teachers who recognize these factors equip themselves to meet the learning needs of diverse student populations. Additionally, by modifying instruction or procedures to address all of the students’ contextual factors, they will have an increased likelihood of academic success.

Create an 8-10 slide digital presentation for a teacher professional development on how contextual factors affect student learning.

Include the following:

How social interactions, culture, society, and technology can affect student development and readiness for learning.

How the contextual factors could be addressed in classroom instruction.

Two specific examples of how you would modify classroom instruction to address contextual factors (e.g., you provide an Internet-based family activity, but several of your students’ families do not have Internet access at home.) How would you modify the activity?

A title slide, a reference slide, and presenter’s notes.

The digital presentation should include graphics that are relevant to the content, visually appealing, and use space appropriately.

Support your presentation with 2-3 scholarly resources.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

Researching theories of child and early adolescent development and then developing instruction based on research-based best practices is crucial for the success of the students and the teacher. As an educator, your goal will be to consider the students’ cognitive development and contextual factors when planning for instruction. Practical application improves the teacher’s ability to recognize student strengths and weaknesses as well as the students’ readiness and motivation to learn.

For this assignment, complete the “Strategies for all Students” template.

Part 1: Developing Strategies

For each student, write a 150-200 word response that includes:

A learning theory that applies specifically to each student’s unique cognitive, linguistic, social-emotional, and physical developmental needs.

One developmentally appropriate instruction strategy you would recommend to assist the student, taking into account the students’ individual strengths, interests, differences and needs. Consider cognitive development and abilities, as well as contextual factors (e.g., language and culture) when developing the strategies.

Your plan to modify instruction to meet this student’s specific needs.

Strategies to incorporate accommodations for students with exceptionalities in assessments and testing conditions.

Part 2: Reflection

In 250-500 words, write a reflection that addresses the following:

The importance of understanding cognitive, linguistic, social-emotional, and physical development of children when designing and modifying instruction.

The steps you can take to ensure you are creating developmentally appropriate instruction that takes into account individual students’ strengths, interests, differences, and needs, using instructional strategies that promote students’ learning and individual development, acquisition of knowledge, and motivation .

Support your assignment with a minimum of 3 scholarly resources.

While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and in-text citations and references should be presented, using APA documentation guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

This benchmark assignment assesses the following programmatic competencies [and professional standards]:

BS in Elementary Education

BS in Elementary Education and Special Education

BS in Elementary Education with an Emphasis in English as a Second Language

BS in Elementary Education with an Emphasis in STEM

BS in Elementary Education with an Emphasis in Teaching Reading

COE 1.1:

Design and modify instruction applying the major concepts, principles, theories, and research related to the cognitive, linguistic, social-emotional, and physical development of children and young adolescents that supports the role of language and culture in learning, and readiness for learning across performance areas. [ACEI 1.0; InTASC 1(a), 1(e), 1(f), 1(g), 2(c), 2(d), 2(e), 2(g), 2(i), 2(j), 2(k), 2(o); MC2, MC3, MC5]

COE 1.2:

Create developmentally appropriate instruction that takes into account individual students’ strengths, interests, differences, and needs, using instructional strategies that promote students’ learning and individual development, acquisition of knowledge, and motivation. [ACEI 1.0; InTASC 1(b), 1(d), 1(h), 1(i), 2(a), 2(b), 2(f), 2(g), 2(h), 2(l), 2(m), 2(n); MC2, MC3]

.doc file