Presents three exercises that deal with issues in communication: (1) icebreaking techniques for seminar groups, including individual, pair, and small group formats; (2) a workshop that stresses cooperative groupwork, including competitive teams; and (3) a workshop that encourages assertiveness in learning situations and discusses submissiveness,…

Reviews literature on group leadership from various theoretical orientations and maintains that variable group leadership functions are necessary to address needs of different client populations and to adapt to different clinical settings. Describes four leadership functions found to be related to outcome in research by Lieberman, Yalom, and Miles…

Explores the role of culture in shaping interpersonal interactions. Investigates the effect of group identity on subjects' levels of attributional confidence, their individuation of group members, and ultimately their interpersonal-interaction strategies. Discovers that the perceived homogeneity of group values eases intragroup interaction. (PRA)

Articulates the salient features of a dissensus-centered pedagogy as utilized in a multicultural composition classroom. Foregrounds the actions of one peer response group in a class designed to be multicultural and to value difference. Explores the role of difference in the workings of collaborative groups. (HB)

Examines female leadership emergence in small groups whose primary task is collaborative writing tasks. Shows how perceptions of leadership depend on both oral and written enactments. Outlines the relationship between the task of writing and the role of the leader in collaborative writing groups. (HB)

Describes a learning activity that allows participants to role play both dysfunctional and constructive roles during a group task, illustrating how group success depends on the attitudes and actions of its members. Includes instructions for the learning activity, questions for debriefing, and follow-up activities. (LP)

Presents guidelines for developing group process skills in peer groups that older adults can then use to improve relationships with sons, daughters, and grandchildren. (SK)

Compares decision processes of consensus and devil's advocacy within an additive task, a disjunctive task, and a conjunctive task structure. Finds that high-conflict decision processes such as devil's advocacy enhances decision making in disjunctive tasks, retards decision making in additive tasks, but has no effect on decision making in…

Examines how individual status characteristics (expertise, occupational status, physical attractiveness, and majority and minority argument quality) influence minority member persuasiveness. Demonstrates that, although all variables influenced perceived status, only relative argument quality had a direct impact on attitude change. (SR)

Describes the three most common (and least effective) techniques for helping campers make friends. A camp counselor's anecdote presents a sure-fire way to make friends: getting people to talk about themselves, and then listening. (TD)

Despite logistical disadvantages of geographic distance and scheduling, using multidisciplinary allied health teams to develop problem-based cases related to older adults has several advantages: increasing cross-disciplinary awareness, building a cadre with team experience, and expanding knowledge of the problem-based learning method. (SK)

Examines selected aspects of the theory and practice of learning in groups; discusses how the history of groups in adult education has influenced perspectives about learning in groups; considers the nature of learning in groups; and discusses power and the role of the facilitator. (JOW)

Explores Dewey's ideas about education as a social experience occurring within community, and their implications for grouping. Suggests that the potential for undesirable outcomes for certain groups challenges educators to use grouping both effectively and ethically. (SK)

Interviews and observations of a series of exchanges between black women's and white women's groups in a large banking organization were used to formulate theory about behavior patterns that produce one of the most troubling aspects of cross-racial interactions--stigmatizing. Results indicate that stigmas arise from group-level interaction that…

Describes nine group activities used to build cooperation and teamwork in adventure-, challenge-, and experiential-education settings. Includes target group, group size, time and space requirements, activity level, props needed, instructions, ideas for post-activity group processing and reflection, and facilitator tips. Target groups include…