This report describes a program for increasing the thinking skills of fourth grade students in one classroom in northern Illinois. Both objective and subjective data gathering found that students experienced difficulty in relating and applying facts and concepts on tasks requiring more sophisticated thinking. Solution strategies combined with an…

Improving at-risk students' low self-esteem, changing the negative feeling that at-risk students have about themselves, and helping at-risk students to become empowered to do something about their poor achievement in school were the major undertaking of this project. A formalized self-esteem assessment tool, the Coopersmith Self Esteem Inventory,…

The present structure of the multi-disciplinary team in crisis centers for adolescents lacks training for youth workers in the decision-making process. This report discusses the development of a youth worker position on a multi-disciplinary team in a short-term residential crisis center for adolescents. Three youth workers, for a period of 3.5…

This practicum's goal was to improve the organizational components of a university child care center through the development and implementation of a comprehensive program of evaluation. Several evaluation models were considered. The Context-Input-Process-Product Model was selected for its flexibility in providing formative and summative results,…

This practicum was designed to improve preschool, kindergarten, and first grade teachers' group decision making skills in order to encourage program continuity from grade to grade in schools in a culturally diverse metropolitan area. A second aim was to use shared skill building to reduce isolation and improve problem solving among preschool and…

A sequentially planned program using quality circle techniques was adapted for the educational environment and Implemented in an elementary school in central Florida. The program consisted of 10 sessions designed to acquaint team leaders and administrators with the quality circle techniques and, under the direction of a trained facilitator, to…

This practicum is designed to assist central office personnel in evaluating the work environment for better coordination to accomplish work, plan for a change effort, and implement a participatory change initiative. The work setting involved a K-12 urban school district (193 schools) containing 431 central-office administrators and more than…

This document describes a practicum that was designed to incorporate student mastery of eight critical thinking skills, their definitions and nature of applicability, with the regular class material, and within the normal scope and sequence of ninth grade world history by introducing each skill concurrent with subject matter, thereby improving…

An attempt was made to increase selected aspects of critical thinking skills of children in a school-age child care program through staff planning of specific program activities using typical activities that would normally occur in these programs. Increased staff members' awareness of their role in facilitating the development of children's…

This document reports on a practicum experience on the improvement of thinking skills of middle school students. There has been much discussion in educational circles that mastery of higher- order thinking skills should be given greater attention in the public schools. A program of teaching thinking skills directly to grade seven geography classes…

The document describes a practicum which developed a unit on critical thinking that applied Jerome Bruner's discovery-learning method and also incorporated the unit within the curricular requirements of elementary education majors at Castleton State College in Vermont. It is presented in five sections and an appendix. Section I provides…

To increase the social skills of second graders, a 32-week peace education curriculum was taught. All 135 students were from the same ethnically diverse suburban school located in a mostly upper-middle class neighborhood. Pre-curriculum observations, interviews, and teacher questionnaires demonstrated that students did not show proper respect for…