This practicum report describes an intervention to teach preschool children to resist gender bias. The stated intervention objectives were as follows: (1) children will exhibit a 20 percent reduction in gender-stereotyped behaviors as measured by experimenter observation; (2) at least 20 percent of children will demonstrate an understanding of…

This practicum was designed to teach appropriate social skills to mainstreamed elementary students with disabilities. It was determined that mainstream classroom teachers did not have adequate knowledge of social skills to promote interaction and develop friendships between disabled students and their nondisabled peers. A social skills inservice…

This practicum report describes the implementation and evaluation of a substance abuse prevention curriculum in a Florida preschool. It was expected that, as a result of the implementation of the curriculum, children would improve in their ability to identify drugs; would increase their self-esteem; and would improve their peer relations. It was…

This practicum was designed to increase the inclusion of elementary-level students who have physical disabilities with their nondisabled peers in art, recess, and media center activities. Regular education classes were invited to join the art activities in the self-contained class for the students with physical disabilities, and a total of four…

This report describes a cross-age tutoring program implemented to improve reading comprehension skills in a group of regular students in a rural elementary school. A targeted group of four fifth-grade students and four second-grade students were matched for cross-age tutoring sessions. The students developed reading comprehension skills through…

This paper describes the outcomes of a program developed and implemented to increase work completion in social studies, along with attending and cooperative behaviors for suburban elementary school students with severe emotional disturbances (SED). The objectives of the program were to increase the work completion of at least 6 of the 8 students…

A project to improve the social skills of kindergarten children in a multicultural setting by a simple peace education program was implemented. Noting that kindergarten children did not exhibit good social skills and were not able to solve conflicts in a peaceful manner, the project was designed to incorporate and increase group problem solving,…

This action research project evaluated a program designed to increase the use of appropriate social skills and improve academic achievement. The targeted population was comprised of first through third graders in four separate communities located in northeast Illinois. Evidence of the problem included teacher observational checklists denoting…

An experienced primary school teacher designed a practicum to teach conflict resolution strategies to 20 second and third grade students in a suburban private school outside a large city in the southeastern United States.The main goal was to train students in prosocial skills so that they could resolve their conflicts with classmates peacefully,…

This practicum was designed to improve the self-esteem and self-confidence of black, largely lower-class sixth-graders at a middle school in a predominantly white, middle-class neighborhood. Students were exposed to multicultural resources, including works of literature by and about African-Americans. A cultural awareness workshop for teachers was…

This practicum was designed to increase enrollment of preschool children with special needs in seven regular day care centers. Corollary aims were to improve the attitudes of day care directors and staffs towards integration; to increase parental and community awareness of integration; to keep governmental day care staff aware of the program in…

The general nature of collaborative work among peers in classrooms is discussed. This framework is applied to the interpretation of a 2-year study which examined how pairs of children in two classrooms (8- and 9-year-olds; 11- and 12-year-olds) worked together to solve computer programming problems in the LOGO language. It was found that students…

This practicum aimed to decrease the social isolation of preschool children with special needs in a mainstreamed day care setting by: (1) increasing initiatives by typical children towards four special needs children; (2) increasing social bids or responses by special needs children toward typical children; and (3) increasing positive…

The effects of a peer counseling program on the elementary school level were studied to determine if positive relationships would promote personal and academic growth thereby increasing self-esteem and self-concept. The project was implemented in three phases: selection and training of 15 fourth and fifth grade students; implementation of special…

This report describes a practicum that was designed to improve the social skills of eight preschool children with autism or Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), through interactions with their typically developing peers. The children were taught in a classroom with eight typically developing children using a regular…