A fictitious memorandum from Niccolo Machiavelli, a 15th-century author, to college presidents, senior administrators, and faculty leaders seeking change in higher education offers suggestions for organizational development and governance in the form of ten rules and related change tactics. Topics addressed include integrity, team-building,…

Discusses cooperative learning and considers the use of interactive group software. Highlights include students' roles in groups; group accountability and peer pressure; the use of strong narrative; and characteristics to look for when reviewing software for interactive group use, including opportunity and context for group interaction and social…

Through anecdotes, a female outdoor educator highlights the importance of role-modeling gender equality, but also suggests a need to explore the cultural assumptions behind sexual roles; what is served by them; and the social mechanisms that reinforce them, such as homophobia. Educational strategies to help women gain and claim competence in the…

Investigated relationships among confidence and competence and performance in variable collaborative groups of preservice elementary educators who worked to solve four mathematical problems that permitted several solutions and had varying degrees of difficulty. Results indicated that their confidence was relatively unaffected by problem difficulty…

Makes the distinction between vertical and horizontal multiculturalism and discusses five elements that will carry multiculturalism into the future with or without affirmative action. These elements include the continued growing diversity in the population, forced intermingling of diverse groups, creation of smaller group affinities, continued…

Discusses issues in informal outdoor education offered by youth programs and social agencies: redefining the outdoors, need for follow-up and continuity, need for interpersonal skills and knowledge of group dynamics as well as technical training, benefits of a team approach, and benefits of engaging in other activities with clients. Contains 29…

Teacher- or advisor-led growth groups are an integral part of the middle school concept. A training program is discussed, one designed to provide teachers with group facilitation skills to be used in an advisor-advisee program for group work in middle school. (Author)

Reports on student and faculty perceptions of group dynamics in problem-based learning situations. Gender differences were demonstrated in interpretation of over 50% of the questionnaire items. Contains 18 references. (DDR)

Investigates whether or not students would be effective coevaluators of musical compositions, hypothesizing that participating in the evaluative process could be a valuable learning technique. Explains that third grade students created musical compositions in cooperative groups and describes the data collection methods, analysis, and results. (CMK)

If female outdoor leaders assume a leadership style incongruent to their gender role, they may receive negative evaluations even though situations necessitate such behavior. Male and female outdoor leaders can break down gender-role expectations by identifying their own leadership styles and gender biases, creating awareness in colleagues of…

Discusses conflicts among girls in a camp setting and how camp counselors can promote positive changes. Examines conflicting female roles in today's society and girls' reactions. Suggests addressing social dysphoria among girls through outdoor-challenge activities led by credible adult female role models. Includes counseling tips. (SV)

Suggestions for facilitating inclusion of people with mixed abilities in outdoor adventure programs focus on creating an atmosphere of trust, cooperation, and mutual respect through open lines of communication, patterns of inclusive decision making, valuing of efforts and nonphysical accomplishments, emphasis on group challenges and activities,…

Scholars theorize that engaging young people in organizational governance promotes positive youth development and organizational effectiveness. To explore this prediction, the study discussed here, based on interview data from 16 youth and 24 adult organizational leaders representing 8 organizations, mapped the developmental processes that occur…

In this article, we explore the challenges--and benefits--of conducting collaborative research on an international scale. The authors--from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand--draw upon their experiences in designing and conducting a three-country study. The growing pressures on scholars to work in collaborative research teams are described, and…

This paper explores the relationships among adolescent leisure activities, peer behavior, and substance use. We suggest that peer group interaction can have a differential effect on adolescent deviant behavior depending on the type of leisure pattern adolescents engage in. We analyze data from a representative national sample of Icelandic…