A Child Development Associate (CDA) training project director in north New Jersey initiated a practicum to create in-service training conditions and supervisory teacher attitudes that supported the teaching efforts of assistant teachers who were working toward CDA certification in a college-based program. Specific goals of the 3-month intervention…

To comply with a 1975 memo from the Office for Civil Rights, the Seaford Senior High School in Seaford, Delaware, was required to maintain records on all student discipline actions. These records consisted of student disciplinary case reports designated by case file numbers. In addition, all discipline actions were to be logged by racial or ethnic…

The implementation of quality circles to increase elementary school teachers' involvement in problem solving, vertical communication, and policy formation is examined in this practicum report. An attitudinal survey of 44 elementary teachers to document lack of vertical communication yielded 32 responses. A followup survey was administered to the…

The goal of this project was to increase regular teacher attendance and active participation during multidisciplinary team (MDT) conferences held to ensure appropriate decisions regarding eligibility, placement, and programming of special needs students. The school psychologist, as a member of the team in the target school in Dade County, Florida,…

A study examined the effectiveness of a program designed to increase literature appreciation and recreational reading of intermediate grade students. Subjects, 460 students an all-black midwestern city, recorded the amount of time spent reading at home, were observed by their teachers during reading periods to evaluate on-task behavior, were…

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…

Minimal communication between school and home was found to contribute to low performance by students at McDuffie High School (South Carolina). This report describes the experience of establishing a computer-based telephone messaging system in the high school and involving parents, teachers, and students in its use. Additional strategies employed…

This practicum addressed the expressed need to help teachers become familiar with the writing process and to provide the staff with ways to incorporate more writing (composition) into their elementary (K-5) classrooms. The objectives included educating the teachers in the writing process so they could feel more comfortable in teaching the new…

This practicum was developed to involve Hispanic parents in a middle school where Hispanic parent involvement was nonexistent. Thirty at-risk Hispanic eighth graders in an urban middle school were identified by the eighth-grade guidance counselor as in danger of not being promoted to the ninth grade. The objectives of this practicum were that 30%…

A practicum is reported that was designed to organize collaborative efforts among primary, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), and bilingual teachers at an elementary school with a 1,200-student enrollment. The school had seen a transition from a white, middle-class to a racially mixed and transient community, with large segments from…

This practicum was designed to enhance the school and home learning environments of 20 neurologically and perceptually impaired students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Participating students received daily regular class and resource room instruction. Needs assessment measures revealed that little learning characteristic data were available…

After part-time and full-time faculty members at New York City Technical College expressed concern about the need for efforts to cater to the requirements of departmental adjunct faculty, a study was undertaken to determine part-time faculty needs (services and support systems) in the hopes of mainstreaming them in the biological sciences…

This practicum was designed to improve development of individualized education plans (IEPs) of mainstreamed students with disabilities in one junior high school, through applied strategies to increase the active involvement of regular classroom teachers, parents, and students in the decision-making process and IEP development. Interventions with…

The problem addressed by the practicum was that students, parents, and teachers in the school district studied did not actively participate in electronic mail opportunities. The goal of the practicum was to increase involvement in electronic mail (e-mail) among fifth and sixth grade students, their teachers, and parents. A telecommunications…