This book offers a collection of games for K-8 students that will enliven instruction, boost student motivation, and enhance learning at school or at home. It features in- and out-of-desk activities to motivate and engage students, promote teamwork, build skills, and enhance interactive problem solving. The book includes hundreds of tips on how to…

Suggests that organizational development consultants should use more explicit representations of the problems they work on with client teams. Offers an approach to overcome difficulties and provides a strategy for intervening in the processes of problem definition in teams. (Author)

Presents an interview with Mike Eisenberg, co-founder of Big6, that explains how the Big6 process for information-based problem-solving can be used to address the challenges educators face related to the No Child Left Behind legislation. Highlights include the need for teamwork between principals, library media specialists, teachers, and…

Describes differences between total quality management and self-directed teams in terms of job design, decision making, flexibility, supervision, labor relations, quality, customers, and training. Offers suggestions for which method to choose when. (SK)

Used correctly, teams can increase productivity, raise morale, and spur innovation. Tips for effective teams include using the right team to do the right job, creating a hierarchy of teams, building an atmosphere of trust, and addressing interpersonal issues. (SK)

A research psychologist at Princeton (Ohio) City Schools attributes district success to a polished management by objectives (MBO) approach helping educators set priorities, stay focused, and meet educational goals. Steps for determining district needs, developing objectives, and monitoring progress are provided. Schools have flexibility to tackle…

"Composition analysis" refers to the mathematics of how component measures combine to produce composite measures based on Bookstein's functions. Composition analysis is applied to the different ways group members might work together such that their individual measures can be combined mathematically to calculate an expected measure for…

Preliminary analysis of data collected from trained expert facilitators of ad hoc creative teams (n=43) found that complex analytical techniques such as costed function modeling and decision criteria matrix may have far more impact upon a team's creative effectiveness than frequently researched measures such as idea quantity. (Contains…

Discusses how service courses in technical writing and their user departments, motivated by calls from industry for students with problem-solving abilities, have incorporated higher-level thinking modes into their assignments. Considers how teachers are changing their pedagogical methods from simple transference of information from teacher to…

The purpose of the present study is to look at the senses in which everyday workplace interactions can be considered manifestations of learning at work and the ways in which such activity could be supervised. The data consists of discussions between employees taped in two technology enterprises and three municipal youth centres, analysed from an…

Students often look for real-life situations where they can apply the concepts they learn. A project of measuring the speed of moving cars demonstrates that they learn communication skills, teamwork skills, and develop patience specially when work in a group with a common purpose.

This article introduces Model-Eliciting Activities (MEAs) as a form of case study team problem-solving. MEA design focuses on eliciting from students conceptual models that they iteratively revise in problem-solving. Though developed by mathematics education researchers to study the evolution of mathematical problem-solving expertise in middle…

The collaborative consultancy role proposed for the educational technologist requires moving beyond the linear model of the systematic approach. Instructional developers need to operate on the conceptual level, to see themselves as problem solvers within a dynamic system in which there are no straight paths, but instead, many paths and many…

The article argues that physical education must make more use of games that involve risk and challenge if it is to develop youthful self-confidence and independence. (CD)

The article describes group games which physical education teachers can use to encourage cooperative problem solving, risk taking, and trust among participants, rather than competition. (CD)