Empathic design involves two social practices -- one is collaboration with users to elicit and make a meaning of user experiences, and another is intrateam collaboration to develop a mutually understood, agreed-upon interpretation of user experiences among team members. This study is focused on the latter phenomenon, conceptualizing this social…

Organizations need to develop innovations to meet emerging problems and challenges due to increasing global competition, customer expectations, or market changes. Responding to these challenges requires employees to create solutions within their organizations, such as new products or processes. While some research has found crucial roles of…

Inclusive education is now advocated as best practice in schools. However, the extent to which adolescents with severe disabilities access the abundant social and academic experiences available in general education classes remains uncertain. We conducted multiple observations of 146 U.S. high school students with severe disabilities (including…

This study tests the hypothesis that cultural differences in group orientation predict an interaction between the student variable--ethnicity--and a learning context variable--reward structure--on math performance after group learning. One hundred and thirty-two African-American and European-American female and male fourth and fifth grade students…

A class originally is a group of individuals. With a skilled teacher-leader, the non-voluntary nature of membership in the group can be overcome, equality of members achieved, and common goals determined. Techniques important to successful group formation include tone setting, structuring, blocking, linking, supporting, reflecting, and…

This book is a general report on aspects of group processes in elementary and secondary schools with reference to appropriate research. Group processes are defined as changes in the social unit known as the group that take place over a period of time; the expected changes occur in three domains--cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. The book…

The ultimate goal of a learning group is to help learners achieve their goals and objectives and to help them learn to live in a rapidly changing and evolving society. Within the context of social change, the author examines how internal dynamics can be used to aid a teacher in developing an effective learning group. Drawing from psychology,…

From his own experience as a group facilitator, the author offers helpful tips to trainers on what to do in 12 problem situations in the classroom. (AJ)

Differences were investigated between communication behaviors of small groups trained or not trained in creative problem-solving. The 110 members of groups trained in problem solving participated more, criticized ideas less, supported ideas more, exhibited more verbal and nonverbal indications of humor, and produced more ideas than the 90…

Describes the use of group dynamics in a junior high school science classroom as a means of dealing with problems associated with the heterogeneous nature of the student population. (JR)

Using a brief experiential group activity called "Choosing a Color Exercise" as an introductory measure, this paper explains the basics of group dynamics and reviews the major theoretical relationships between the group's structure, the dynamics of maintenance and task behaviors, and effective individual performances. The types of functional and…