The principal as all-knowing patriarch and problem-solver is passe. Today's principals must be team builders who can inspire a diverse group of professionals to cooperate. Principals need a leadership vision and strategic planning skills. Superintendents should teach principals how to dream creatively, conduct environmental scans, assess…

This paper examines the use of total quality management (TQM) principles in the selection of college faculty, presenting a TQM model for the recruitment, identification, and selection of faculty. This model relates the role of vision, mission, planning, and organization design with quality concepts, such as leadership, empowerment, client…

The paper presents four steps to effective parent-teacher conferences that enable teachers to make parents partners in a team effort to strengthen students' academic, social, and emotional well-being. Preconference worksheets for both parents and students to complete are attached. (SM)

With a $30,000 Carnegie Foundation grant, a Baltimore middle school launched a school-improvement team comprised of teacher representatives and "house" principals from "schools-within-schools," parents, community members, and the principal. After 4 years of tackling test scores, attendance, curriculum, scheduling, and parental…

Includes "Meeting the Needs of the Aging Network" (Browdie); "In Nursing, a Study in Contradictions" (Morrissey); and "In Geriatrics, the Team Approach" (Heinemann). (JOW)

Describes a study of U.S. Air Force design professionals that examined aspects of collaboration in multidisciplinary design teams and identified design experts' information needs that could be supported by information technology. Highlights include concurrent engineering, electronically networked communication, internal process in information…

A group of educators and other interested parties can be steeped in knowledge of the change process and transformed into a team by experiences in an institute or academy specifically designed for that purpose. Team building can facilitate educational improvement by forming a nucleus of committed, risk-taking people in each school. Benefits and…

This paper uses qualitative research data and examples from a high school drama class to examine how achieving full learning membership for students with severe disabilities requires teachers, in collaborative and consultative relationships, to provide all students with crucial supports by flexibly working within three inclusion parameters…

Discussion of productivity in the workplace focuses on libraries, particularly academic libraries. Productivity is defined; opportunities and barriers for productivity in the workplace are explained, including adversity, technology, teamwork, and management styles; and implications for managers are suggested. (16 references) (LRW)

After joining a statewide project to encourage continuous improvement in education, the City of Burlington (New Jersey) Public Schools tackled high school attendance problems, using a seven-step process based on defining reasons for improvement, assessing the current situation, performing a cause-and-effect analysis, formulating countermeasures…

Professional study groups have been a dominant feature of the Richmond County (Georgia) Schools' educational improvement efforts since 1987. Study groups offer a structure that turns all individuals into learners eager to assume responsibility for their own learning and that of colleagues and students. The principal's active participation is a key…

Analysis of Bush Foundation regional programs in faculty development resulted in conclusions concerning the characteristics of successful development activities. It was found that grants encouraging teamwork are more productive than isolated grants for scholarship. Guidelines are also needed to assist in faculty evaluations and prepare faculty for…

While Principal Norman Higgins was speaking at an out-of-town conference, his high school faculty voted to cancel final exams for seniors and hold a morale-raising picnic. Although some principals dole out site-based power only grudgingly, Higgins takes his coordinator role seriously and delegates loads of responsibility. This article details…

Development of home-school partnership programs involves encouraging parental participation through communication of mutual respect, sharing ownership, sharing problem solving, agreeing upon roles and responsibilities, assessing home variables, acknowledging the home as a naturalistic setting, and promoting prosocial student behavior. (JDD)

Notes that firms no longer want college graduates with "just" high intelligence quotients, 4.0 grade point averages, technical expertise, and high ambition but are also looking for team players. Reviews economic and societal trends that have contributed to this shift in organizational psychology and examines characteristics of workers who are most…