In August 1995, the teachers at an elementary school in Houston (Texas) voted to adopt teacher-led study groups as their form of staff development for the 1995-96 school year. This study documents the progress of one of these groups, the Multiple Intelligences group, and examines the changes that occurred in roles and relationships as the teachers…

This handbook and leadership guide for members of technical program advisory committees is a product of the Effective Advisory Committees Project conducted by the Minnesota State Board of Technical Colleges and the State Board of Education. The purpose of the project is to increase the effectiveness of the vocational advisory committees in…

It is difficult for a student to understand small group communication and the role communication plays in making an experience a positive or negative one until he or she is actually involved in small group experience. Such goes the argument for experiential learning in the classroom. By incorporating a service-learning component into the…

Site-based management is a concept whose time has come. This book was designed to introduce the concept of teaming, elaborate the decision-making process, and describe the skills and processes needed for a variety of decision-making situations. Chapter 1 introduces the concept of teaming and discusses the decision-making process in depth. Chapters…

This report describes a case study in the use of peer mentoring and cohorts to improve doctoral student retention and summarizes survey data reflecting the experience of eight universities. The University of California/California State University Fresno Joint Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership was designed to create cohorts of doctoral…

Cooperative learning is defined by an emphasis on positive interdependence among students to learn course materials, face-to-face interaction, individual accountability, the development of interpersonal and small group skills, and group processing of group functioning. In the last 10 years, lower-, upper-, and graduate-level psychology courses at…

In this study of students in a combined kindergarten-first grade class, the impact of students' ways of speaking on their classroom social identities was considered. The study focused on discourse in "first circle," a daily event in which teacher and students meet to start school by taking attendance, filling in a calendar, and planning…

This set of training materials was developed as part of the Preparing Educational Training Consultants (PETC) program, as an outgrowth of the Educational Intern program conducted by the National Training Laboratory (NTL) Institute for Applied Behavioral Science. The set includes the following packets: (1) Instructional Strategies for Senior…

This report summarizes two studies which documented the development of prelingually deaf children (N=4, N=40) in Sweden exposed to sign communication during preschool years. The first study involved analysis of video recordings, forming a qualitative description of social strategies used by four children with different social positions in the peer…

This guide, which is intended to assist literacy practitioners interested in establishing collaborative learning (CL) groups, outlines a collaborative learning approach that was developed during a project to coordinate citywide adult literacy efforts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Discussed in the guide's eight sections are the following topics:…

Children's relationships with their peers become more intimate as they grow older, with girls tending to experience intimacy in their friendships at an earlier age than their male counterparts. The size, friendship composition, and activity of elementary school children's play groups were recorded in an attempt to identify probable environmental…

Using cooperative learning techniques in writing classes requires the instructor to plan carefully and respond spontaneously to the assignment as students work through it. Steps using the techniques successfully include: (1) developing academic objectives for each step in the writing process (i.e., prewriting, drafting, revising, and proofreading…

This study examined the interpersonal dynamics of participants in special education placement committees serving students with limited English proficiency. The theoretical and conceptual framework of Chris Argyris and Donald Schon was applied to interactions observed in simulated placement committee meetings. Individual decision making related to…

The three reports combined here examine a workshop/seminar consultancy program for college faculty on the dynamics of course teams and group process in course development. The consultancy program focused on the hidden influences of groups and the relationship between individual and institutional change. These three reports: (1) examine the…

A team-oriented approach is replacing the traditional management style in today's organizations. Because team management skills differ, they require different teaching methods. This paper describes an administrator education course designed to develop team management skills from an applied and behavioral viewpoint. Students participate in…