Society still carries the lingering remains of the autocratic cultural mores of reward and punishment. Staff in a group home setting for children must be aware of the complexity caused by the mingling of autocratic and democratic mores. This phenomenon causes discrepancy in parenting methods. It was surmised that training the staff (N=4) at one…

A licensed counselor working in a privately owned mental health facility implemented a practicum study designed to improve the parenting skills and quality of family communication in families with children between 3 and 14 years of age. Practicum goals were to: (1) give parents information that would improve their parenting skills; and (2)…

A prekindergarten teacher working in a private elementary day school developed and implemented a prosocial behavior program designed to improve the social behavior of prekindergarten students. The program focused on decreasing the incidence of 10 behaviors: (1) pouting; (2) hitting; (3) yelling indoors; (4) interrupting; (5) whining; (6) ignoring…

A program was conducted to improve the quality of food service through the training of 44 food and nutrition service employees in a 200-bed hospital. A 12-week quality control program was implemented to address four key areas: food temperatures, food accuracy, food quality, and dietary personnel. Learning strategies, emphasizing critical thinking…

The low number of high school students electing to take advantage of the training available at a vocational school was addressed by implementing a program of activities intended to increase knowledge and develop critical thinking skills in decision making. The program took place in a West Florida high school with 1,819 students in grades 9-12, the…

Over a l0-week period, an elementary school teacher designed and implemented a practicum study intended to help a target group of 24 kindergartners develop crucial mathematical problem-solving skills and to prepare them for taking the Stanford Achievement Test. The objective was addressed through implementation of direct instruction, modeling,…

This practicum sought to combat the problem of decreasing readiness skills and overall general knowledge of entering kindergarten students, by developing and implementing an integrated parent involvement program for regular and special education classes in preschool and kindergarten. The first phase involved parents and children in a home-based…

As a practicum project, an elementary school counselor developed and implemented a parent education program centered on the use of parents as models and peer facilitators for other parents. Based upon a survey of parents' self-professed needs, the program focused on parenting skills designed to help children avoid such high-risk behaviors as…

An elementary school administrator designed and implemented a 12-week summer program for school-age children that provided educational, recreational, and cultural opportunities. Each week of activities centered on a specific theme. Recreational opportunities included sports activities, outdoor games, organized indoor games, free play, swimming,…

An associate director of an independent preschool and elementary school developed and implemented a practicum intervention designed to improve five inexperienced teachers' ability to conduct parent-teacher conferences. Through self-evaluation, teachers identified skills they needed to improve. Intervention focused on preconference planning…

This practicum was designed to provide expertise to five child development associates and ten teacher assistants working in two preschool programs for migrant children. Emphasis was on the enhancement of program-related planning, curriculum development, curriculum implementation, and reporting skills. Weekly inservice workshops were developed and…

In preparation for a 1996 restructuring at State Community College, in Illinois, from a state agency to an independent community college, a project was undertaken to develop a strategic plan to guide the transition. Specifically, the project sought to determine the necessary elements of and functions and activities required by the plan,…

This practicum was designed to integrate a study skills program throughout special education classes in a middle school. The major objectives were to develop a variety of instructional strategies to meet the students' needs in the area of study skills, to foster the teaching of study skills in each subject area by the special education teachers…

The significant number of firefighter trainees experiencing performance evaluation anxiety during fire training school was addressed by the implementation of anxiety reduction and performance enhancement strategies. Audiotape recordings were chosen as the primary intervention medium to facilitate program effectiveness within an established fire…

This paper reports on the implementation and results of a program that addressed the problem of aggressive behavior among students at an urban elementary school. Program objectives were to bring about a decline in the number of referrals written for students' aggressive behavior; an increase of parents' supervision of children's media consumption;…