Discusses conditions and methods that result in receptivity to learning and advocates their incorporation in language teaching. (RM)

Research indicates that the role of information can be ambiguous in the decision-making process. Because relevance can be a problem with respect to information used in decision making, organizations should strive to achieve a linkage between flows of information and the making of specific decisions. Information flow between organizations and their…

Cooperative learning as a promising approach for higher education is discussed in terms of its relation to active learning, cognitive processing, and personalizing principles and concepts. Preliminary data from experimental classes demonstrated little advantage for a group improvement incentive. While students in the bottom third of these classes…

Symbolic interactionism, or the interactional perspective, provides the broadest overview of the major theoretical divisions in the field of speech communication. It is neither too abstract nor overly concrete and is directly linked to communicative behavior, and thus does not impose an inappropriate mechanism on the discipline in order to create…

A study examined the relationship between participation and performance in groups to determine whether increased communicative activity brought about through participation in groups resulted in the acquisition of specific types of organizational knowledge and increased motivation which positively affected performance. Subjects for the study were…

As college student populations become more diverse and classes become more heterogeneous, instructors have an opportunity to implement leadership models based on the goals of empowerment, cooperation, inclusion, and collaboration. A heterarchical notion of leadership (in which information and authority flow across channels and input from all…

A course at California State University, Northridge, titled Applied Organizational Communication, allows students to apply their understanding of group and organizational communication theory to an actual situation and then in turn to analyze the observations in the organization in terms of those theories. The class forms a simulated organization…

The concept of complexity in decision-making can be found in several lines of conceptualization in the area of national and international decision-making. One derives from the classic works on authoritarianism and dogmatism (Adorno, et al., 1950; Rokeach, 1960). Another approach relies on the variables that pertain to group dynamics and to…

One approach to the implementation of community education is to solicit involvement and support for the idea from the informal power structure. The first step is to identify the informal power structure; one method is the reputational technique, in which selected members of a variety of organizations each nominate at least five people who have…

For many learners in adult basic education (ABE) or General Educational Development (GED) classrooms, the difference between staying with the program and leaving prematurely is often related to the degree of the student's involvement with other members of the class. Grouping students to work together has both support- and learning-related…

In recent years there has been some evidence of a resurgence of interest in experiential groupwork methods such as T-groups among cooperative and community development workers, feminists, and those concerned with heightening sensitivity to social problems. Two adult educators who believed that experiential laboratory methods can enable students to…

To bring educational research into focus with tested classroom practice, this booklet provides an introduction to small group discussion. The theory and research section discusses the importance of small group discussion, characteristics of small group discussions, group attraction based on Maslow's hierarchy of basic human needs, group decision…

This book was written for students who wish to enhance their leadership potential and skills. Chapter 1, The Challenge of Leadership, defines leadership and looks at the myths, challenges, costs, and rewards of leadership. Chapter 2, Understanding Communication, examines communication as a process, exposes myths about communication, discusses ways…

Nine past presidents, the current president, and the executive director of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) contributed a chapter each to this history of ASCD and the fields it has represented since its founding in 1943. The book's editor, William Van Til, provides an introductory overview of the organization's…

This student guide is intended to assist persons employed as supervisors in improving their ability to organize and manage work teams. Discussed in the first four sections are the following topics: groups and work teams (work groups, types of groups, work teams, and the effect of the workplace on groups); individuals in groups (the individual,…