Running head: TRESS REDOLENCE TEACHING AND LEARNING MANUAL 1

Tress Redolence Employee Teaching and Learning Manual:

A Focus on Positive Education, Learning through Research,

Understanding Learning, Memory and Goal Setting

Alicia Douglas

Instructor: Jacob English

EPY 2040-009

2 October 2017
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Business Description

Growing up I was not taught how to properly take care of my hair. What I grabbed from my

upbringing regarding my mane was to wash it every two weeks, and keep it moisturized,

somehow. That was it. I did not have access to aunts and cousins who could teach me better, I

didn’t have a sister to look up to when it came to proper hair care, so I was left to fend for

myself, especially after leaving home for my first stint in college. Fast-forward into my twenties,

after hitting a rough patch, I decided to just cut my hair off for a new start. And even then, I

didn’t really know what to do with my hair besides brushing it. I was not at a complete loss,

however. The internet was becoming more accessible so other girls and women were sharing

their hair care regimens online, via YouTube. I was not that dedicated to start my own online

show, but I was dedicated to figuring my curls out. I kept practicing with different twists and

braids, oils, creams and gels, until I understood what my hair could do and how I could control it.

After years of not understanding the power with which my hair holds, I was determined to strive

for a healthy head of thick, black hair.

In the beginning of my hair journey, I always knew I wanted to create something that would

make sure women had good smelling hair, using fragrances that would last a nice while,

something that was compatible with real hair as well as extensions. So, I thought of creating a

sort of hair perfume. Yet, the more thought I put into my dream, the more I felt compelled to

create not only something that would make hair smell good, but something that would make hair

feel good for both women and men.

Tress Redolence focuses on hair health, hair inclusion and hair virtuousness.
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Company Mission statement – Tress Redolence is originated on the foundation of leaving an

eternal impression, whether entering or leaving a room. We value simplicity and honest

ingredients to ensure optimal care for your hair goals and maintenance. Millennial made; for a

future of confident, healthy and fragrant tresses worldwide.

Company Business Objectives:

The objectives for the first three years of operation include:

1. To create a hair product company whose goal is to exceed customer’s expectations

2. To increase the number of clients served by at least 15% per year through superior

results, word-of-mouth referrals (face-to-face, social media, pop up shop’s, etc.)

3. To develop a start-up business, that contributes to increased employment of community

residents, and an amplified overall knowledge of hair health

The target audience for my manual would be men and women, aged 22-40, who seek and value

simple yet lavish hair care products for their natural hair, as well as real hair extensions.

The employees at Tress Redolence have a lifestyle that promotes the same quality that the brand

offers. Effortless, urban, uncomplicated and unique would describe the type of employee that

walks the halls of Tress Redolence. These employees value the goodness that goes within the

products we serve to the community and that of the world. They understand what it means to dig

and find solutions for those who experience hair growth problems, as well as those who just need

something for hair maintenance.

Tress Redolence is important because not only do we endorse all men and women to really

understand their hair, but we also promote overall health. Inside each purchase of a product will

include information on the key ingredients as well as suggestions on healthy eating habits to pair
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the products’ acting agents with. This way our consumer will know that we want to help them

achieve the best head of hair that they desire as well as healing them from the inside out.

There are numerous components to which a person can grow and continuously strive to become

their best self. With that said, the following information will explain a select four learning

enhancing strategies that I feel will have the best impact on employees here at Tress Redolence;

Positive Education, Learning through Research, Understanding Motivation and Understanding

Learning and Memory.

POSITIVE EDUCATION

Positive Education is a psychological educational approach which aims to develop students’

well-being and promote happiness within the classroom. Positive Education targets the well-

being, happiness and confidence of the psyche of students. While it promotes a well-rounded

individual in the classroom, it also addresses the morality of these students outside of the

classroom.

The importance that positive education exudes is crucial to the developing mind. For instance,

normally, a positive upbringing promotes great benefits, overall, for children. Interactive and

supportive parents produce secure children. Those children usually become well-adjusted adults

in different situations, like establishing their own home lives, continued academic success as

well as their work life. Subsequently, if company policy promotes those same set of qualities at a

place of business, the results would show a positive work space. To get the most out of Positive

education every piece of a person’s outer and inner shell will have to be addressed; from one’s

home and family life, social circle(s), and their educational arena. Enthusiasm, openness, the
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ability to communication feelings without fear of judgement, etc., all play a vital role in the

procurement of Positive Education.

For example, at Tress Redolence, the company would require bi-weekly positive educational

training for management to fully grasp the concept, how to apply it and encourage them to share

their results of them successfully implementing their learned interventions over the past two-

weeks. This would allow other managers, supervisors, team-leads, etc. to adapt a successful idea

or tweak their own to produce a positive outcome. “Teachers are a big influence on their student

in their day-to-day interactions and the simple attention to wording of positive reinforcement

makes a difference” (Positive Psychology Program , 2016).

My example is supported by the Langley Group Institutes graduate, Frances Totney, who worked

on the pioneered the Positive Education Program and Geelong Grammar. The basis of her

position is backed by the thought that “a whole-school approach to positive education is about

preparing kids to flourish, showing teachers how to build on students’ strengths, enhancing

teacher’s own wellbeing and leadership skills, [and] developing a positive culture throughout the

school…” (Totney, 2014). In short, if companies dedicated time to develop exclusive learning

environments throughout the workplace, “positive results are amplified, promoting benefits for

all” (Totney, 2014).

LEARNING THROUGH RESEARCH

Research, defined, is “creative work undertaken on a systematic basis to increase the stock of

knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture, and society and the use of this stock

knowledge to devise new applications.”

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Throughout any of Tress Redolence’s employees academic careers, they had to participate in

completing different types of research papers or projects. AT this company, growth is ever-

evolving and this business cannot thrive and produce the best products without the diligence of

its workers. Research is necessary to consistently grow in any professional position, especially

those of leadership. Business is already a competitive field; the better your team understands

interdependence, the better your productivity and work efficiency becomes. For the team to

exude superior levels of interdependence, the leadership of each division will need to promote

and practice its principles which will lead to the employees’ understanding of how to do their

part in completing the common goal for the group; research.

An instance of a student experiencing a not-so-pleasant research experience noted in the article,

‘Undergraduate Research as a High-Impact Student Experience’ written by David Lopatto. The

student responded to a survey about her experience in an undergrad research opportunity led by a

not so attentive senior research mentor and stated, “These interpersonal relationships are just as

important to me as the research itself” (Lopatto, 2006). The observation occurred in the context

of explaining that she was leaving her planned science career path because of poor mentoring.”

This statement alone proves my position of businesses needing to understand the importance of

instituting inter-dependence amongst its employees to create not only a harmonious environment

but one conducive to everyone doing their part of work or research for the greater good of the

group and current project.

An example of how Learning Through research would be utilized within the confines of Tress

Redolence would be Individual Responsibility Coupled with Communal Sharing. While this

approach is basic, it simply promotes the ability of all group or team members to work

collectively and successfully to solve a problem and/or create new information for an assigned
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project. “The group uncovers together which aspects of knowledge need further investigation

and individual [employees] take responsibility for finding out more and teaching this knowledge

to others” (van den Broek, 2012). The saying, ‘Repetition is Key,’ would be fitting.

Researchers, Ann Brown and John Campione from Berkeley University, who both developed a

teaching model called, Fostering Communities of Learners (FCL), which is a “constructivist

teaching model that emphasizes democratic, student-centered, and inquiry-based instruction

oriented toward the development of higher-order understanding by means of complex, authentic

tasks, collaborative scientific research, and reciprocal teaching” (Brown, 1994), based their

theory on the Vygotskian concept of a zone of proximal development. Not only is the FCL

concept used within the classroom but it can also be used within the workplace; and the first

portion of Brown and Campione’s teaching model, Individual Responsibility Coupled with

Communal Sharing, would only be the scratch on the surface of producing positive outcomes.

The other essential characteristics of successful FCL classrooms are: “(2) Multiple zones of

proximal development (3) Ritual, Familiar Participant Structures (4) A Community of Discourse

and (5) Seeding, Migration and Appropriation of Ideas” (Brown, 1994). At Tress Redolence,

adoption of these strategies would be extremely useful for all employees, on all levels, so that

project efficiency would be cohesive across the board.

UNDERSTANDING MOTIVATION

Motivation is “the reason or reasons on has for acting or behaving in a particular way” (Merriam-

Webster, 2016). People frequently think about what motivates them to do the basic things in life,

like getting up to get dressed in the morning, going to work for either fulfillment or to simply
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collect a check. Those who can find no sense of motivation are often suffering from a loss of

something that once was valuable to them; may it be something tangible or not. Drive, focus and

a sense of self-worth can all be a part of a person’s motivation.

At Tress Redolence, employees will need to hold near and dear to them their sense of being; their

motivation. Being that motivation is the reason or reasons for acting certain ways the company

would need to exemplify a motivating environment. In a web article by Andrew Jensen he breaks

down and discusses ‘5 Ways to Create a Motivating Work Environment.’ Which include:

“creating tasks that are beneficial to the company, hire top performers, show appreciation, set

goals, display confidence” (Jensen, 2017). These points are bland, plainly stated, however, they

incorporate the basic foundation of creating a motivating work atmosphere that only requires a

person believing in themselves to produce top tier work. And if those ideologies are applied

correctly it will lead to a positive domino effect.

Values learned while growing up can change over time as we enter adulthood. With that,

humans’ values can become skewed at the time where we need them the most. But how do we

know what we were taught, and what we are choosing to learn or to adapt are our correct paths

for making and attaining goal as well as our daily tasks? Values; “are sometimes called

principles of beliefs.” And what may throw wrenches into a lot of goals that humans seek out

could be a lack of governing values, there is no belief system, there are no principles with which

to lean on, they only have fixed mindsets, etc. If an employee reports to work, and does sub-par

on effort with completing his or her projects, their immediate supervisor would need to take the

necessary precautions when dealing with the situation by asking certain questions; “is there an at

home/personal issue?” “Has this person grown bored in their position?” “What, if anything, can

be done to get the ball rolling regarding the motivation of this person.” If a company shows
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concern about the wellbeing of its employees, the more its employees will tend to the wellbeing

of its company. Purely stated, to get motivation, one must give motivation.

I will take from Andrew Jensen’s article about motivation to apply my work-related example of

understanding motivation. Goal setting is extremely important in a company’s ongoing success.

Jensen states, “a goal is a result that someone is expecting to achieve successfully in a designated

amount of time” (Jensen, 2017). So not only will the company have time-oriented objectives and

goals, but employees will need to create and act on their daily, weekly, monthly, and annual

goals as well. Jensen continues with “while you may think that creating and hanging the list up is

enough, you may have missed one crucial element; a time-line” (Jensen, 2017). At Tress

Redolence, management will have a big responsibility to convey the same principles and

standards that we want our employees to mirror. Because in a continuously learning environment

there would need to be people who are ready and willing to teach, explain, and encourage at the

drop of a dime. H. Smith stated, “Values explain why you want to accomplish certain things in

life. Long-range goals describe what you want to accomplish. Intermediate goals and daily tasks

show how to do it” (Smith, 2016). Tress Redolence does not need to be the “Disneyland” of the

lot, but it does need to be one that expects maturity, greatness, confidence, the willingness to

motivate and the ability to be motivated across all fronts.

UNDERSTANDING LEARNING AND MEMORY

Learning and Memory go hand in hand. Without one, there is no possible way the other could

stand. There is a saying that goes, “knowledge is power.” And it is partially true, but within that

statement of having knowledge, one would have had to retain said knowledge to emit power. So,

memory of that learned knowledge takes a role. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary,

(Merriam-Webster, 2016) learning means “to gain knowledge, understanding or skill by study or
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experience.” While in the same book, the word ‘memory’ has about seven break-downs, and

includes an explanation for “the storing of knowledge within a computer;” however, it can

always relate to the brain. Memory means “the power or process of remembering…” and “a

device (as in a computer) in which information can be stored” (Merriam-Webster, 2016).

Overall, one’s memory dictates the capacity for storing information. As explained in the book,

‘Motivation and Learning Strategies for College Success’ (Dembo, 2016), learning and the

ability to remember is dependent on the connectedness of the brain. The frontal lobes are

“responsible for conscious thinking and decision making,” parietal lobes are “responsible for

paying attention,” the occipital lobes “aid in interpreting and remembering visual cues” and the

temporal lobes interpret and remember auditory cues.” So, there is no one part of the brain

responsible for humans’ learning and memorizing capabilities, the entire organism unifies to get

the job done. Just like the employees at the company I created, “Tress Redolence.” At Tress

Redolence, a growth mindset is looked at as someone who will always be thinking toward future

innovation of production, the ability to be sustainable for the environment as well as the for the

betterment of the company. Work smart, not harder.

Expanding upon the growth mindset, this would be someone who plainly sees a way, even after a

failed attempt. Pertaining back to the book, ‘Motivation and Learning Strategies for College

Success,’ (Dembo, 2016) a growth mindset is “an individual’s belief that brain and intelligence

can be developed and that success is dependent on the amount of effort applied.” On the opposite

side of the learning spectrum is what is called having a fixed mindset which is “an individual’s

belief that brain and intelligence cannot be developed and that success is dependent on the
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amount of intelligence one has to begin.” Well thank goodness, the world is ever evolving; if it

were not, we’d still be considered prokaryotes.

At Tress Redolence, growth is in the root of the company. If we take care of the root, learn about

how to protect it and nurture it, then a beautiful head of healthy and good-smelling hair will tell

the story. In any business, it cannot run itself, it has to be strategically groomed with a fine-

toothed comb. And those fine-teeth will be the employees who will need to believe in

themselves, in the company’s mission, to strive to achieve both the short and long-term goals,

and then work together to plan for more. If the employees are not learning/memorizing different

business approaches from their administration, from the owner, the CEO, etc., the company will

fail. Being stagnant or fixed in any part of life is accepting whatever it is that you currently are or

have. Everybody wants more, if not more, they want better for themselves, and employees at

Tress Redolence will have to come on board already possessing a growth mindset, be ready to

adapt to a growth mindset, or find another company to work for. At the same time, people have

issues that are separate from life at work. If employees are going through a tough time, or in a

tough situation, there would be an open-door policy available as well as nondisclosures between

management/occupational psychologists and employees, unless it affects the safety of others, so

that problems can be solved or worked on. Personal (at home) challenges can and will arise, that

is life, as well as at work distractions from overly friendly co-workers; These instances can seem

unavoidable, but as one who understands the importance of mental balance, interventions will be

set in place for anyone who may not feel like themselves during a particular time.
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Activities to promote actual understanding of Learning and Memory are representative of “an

effort to translate research from cognitive psychology into the arena of [real-life scenarios, i.e.,]

college students [and employees]” (McCabe, 2014). Jennifer A. McCabe from the Department

of Psychology at Goucher College compiled a list of classroom demonstrations of learning and

memory strategies that can easily be put to test within the work place. They include: deep

processing, self-reference effect, spacing effect, testing effect, imagery, chunking, mnemonics,

generation effect. The example that I would carry out at Tress Redolence would be the self-

reference effect. McCabe reports, citing from S.B. Klein, J.F. Kihlstrom and T.B. Rodgers et. al.,

that “the self-reference effect (or self-referential processing) refers to the memory advantage for

material personally related to the learner. Information that is attached to the self-schema is more

easily encoded and later retrieved” (Klein, 1986), (McCabe, 2014), (Rodgers, 1977). In the

matter of this example, I would send out a sheet of the different types of essential oils, some that

are familiar to most of the population, and others that are not as well known. It would then be up

to the employees to work on this learning and memory activity individually or in groups of two,

and think of any adjectives that describe the scents of each. This would promote further

knowledge and expertise on the plant for employees, as well as many other creative ways to

market, campaign and personalize the ingredients within the Tress Redolence products. McCabe

states that “this demonstration is based on Forsyth and Wibberly’s (1993) report of a within

subjects demonstration of the self-reference effect…[and that] this is a practical and effective

way to demonstrate the self-reference effect (and the related concept of depth of processing in

the classroom)” (McCabe, 2014).

In conclusion of this activity, the people/groups who not only took the time to assign themselves

to a piece of the product and made it whole, would be leading examples of learning, memorizing
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and motivation for the company to be proud of and portrayed on the company’s website for

recognition. this gesture would be the company’s gift to the growing leadership at Tress

Redolence.; another way to boost positivity, learning through research, motivation and memory

within the workplace.

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References
Brown, A. a. (1994). Guided Discovery in a Community of Learners. In K. (. McGilly, Classroom Lessons:
Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practice (pp. 229-270). Cambridge: MIT
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Dembo, M. H. (2016). Motivation and Learning Strategies For College Success. New York: Routledge.

Jensen, A. (2017, August 20). 5 Ways to Create a Motivating Work Environment. Retrieved from
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environment/

Klein, S. &. (1986). Elaboration, organization, and the self-reference effect in memory. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: General, 115; 26-38.

Lopatto, D. (2006). Undergraduate Research as a catalyst for liberal learning. Peer Reveiw 8 , (1): 22-25.
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McCabe, J. A. (2014). Learning and Memory Strategy Demonstrations for the PSychology Classroom.
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https://teachpsych.org/Resources/Documents/otrp/resources/mccabe14.pdf

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Incorporated.

Positive Psychology Program . (2016, September 11). What is Positive Education and How To Apply It.
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https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/what-is-positive-education/#application-positive-
education

Rodgers, T. K. (1977). Self-reference and the encoding of personal information. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 35; 677-688.

Smith, H. (2016). The 10 natural aws of successful time management. In H. S. Myron H. Dembo,
Motivation and Learning Strategies for College Success (p. 102). New York: Routledge.

Student Affairs. (2016, July 31). Improving Concentration/Memory. Retrieved from Virgina Polytechnic
Institute and State University:
http://ucc.vt.edu/academic_support/online_study_skills_workshops/improving_concentration_
memory.html

Totney, F. (2014, Novemeber 15). Student Spotlight: Bringing Positive Education to Schools. Retrieved
from The Langley Group Institute : http://langleygroupinstitute.com/bringing-positive-
education-to-schools-to-promote-whole-school-wellbeing/

van den Broek, G. B. (2012, June 14). Innovative Research-Based Approches to Learning and Teaching.
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