Paraprofessionals are important members of special education teams. In particular, the experiences of paraprofessionals who support students with autism spectrum disorder may provide valuable insights and thus merit qualitative research. In this narrative study, the relevant experiences of Turkish paraprofessionals are investigated. Findings…

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) staff are central to promoting young children's development, learning and well-being. ECEC staff work in teams and the staff roles included these teams vary both across countries and within countries, for instance related to the size and location of ECEC centres. Initial education and ongoing professional…

Changes and innovations in higher education learning and teaching acted as a catalyst for rethinking the way in which service was delivered to library clients at Australian Catholic University. The Single Service Point was piloted at one campus library in 2014 to develop a best practice approach to service delivery. The merging of cultures within…

A training course of two after-school sessions was run for teaching assistants (TAs) in a UK inner city primary school. The subject of the training was classroom use of a version of differential reinforcement of alternative behaviours (DRAs) known as Fair Pairs. The training introduced the concept of "Three Part Praise" within Fair…

In this article, we describe an inclusive educational programme for a young boy severely affected by autism. The programme is exemplary not only academically, but also in terms of what children need socially and emotionally. It represents best practices in action. Given the wide agreement about what constitutes best education practices, but the…

School inspection, school self-evaluation and the relationship between them are important themes in current educational policy debates. Many education systems are seeking to find a balance between the, at times, conflicting demands for a robust, transparent and effective system of school evaluation that at the same time allows for professional…

This paper describes a three-year research partnership between Roehampton University in London and VT Four S Ltd, providers of school support services in Surrey, a county in the south east of England. The project, named "New Partnerships for Learning" (NPfL), was centred on the delivery of a professional development programme to equip…

A Finnish nursing home's team development process included brainstorming on the characteristics of good teams, profiling of team members' nursing skills, analysis of tasks, and identification of ways to improve work quality and information flow to residents. Team building required clarification of work structures, determination of the…

The development of staff in any organization in order to attain quality results is a sine qua non. The human resource of any organization, including schools and colleges is central to its effectiveness. What matters is the model that is used to enable the development of staff, in this case the development of teachers in secondary schools. This…

This staff training package was produced to complement a curriculum framework for assisting students with severe physical disabilities to make the transition to adulthood. The package is based partially on the experiences of a team from the North Nottinghamshire College of Further Education in England. Part 1 explores the concept of transition to…

Nine papers aim to help staff members in England's colleges of further (or adult) education to improve their interpersonal skills. The first paper outlines basic social interaction skills. The second paper covers current methods of analyzing group interaction, including observation of role behavior and of interaction flow and frequency. The third…

This article reports on a study investigating the relationship between the introduction of new management practices and the training provided by Australian enterprises for their employees. The new management practices investigated include teamworking, total quality management, lean production, business process re-engineering and the learning…

While team mental models have been shown to be effective in facilitating team operations in ordinary transactive organizations, their impact on loosely coupled yet value-laden organizations is relatively under studied. Using qualitative inquiry methodology, this study investigates the three referential frameworks (i.e., theoretical knowledge,…

The theory of object relations is applied to the group dynamics of the Open University's course development and instruction teams and to several other situations, including the relationship between the Open University and the BBC, staff support in summer schools, manpower planning, and staff development. (MSE)

This paper presents examples from 10 internal consultancies provided by the author within the Open University (United Kingdom) that reveal how teams develop and are integrated into the systems of a complex institution. These consultancies included: providing consulting services to a course team; counseling with a course team chair; serving as a…