This book presents information on action research for teachers and administrators. Chapter 1, Reflective Professional Practice, discusses reflective professionals, urges active use of solitary dialogue and personal journals to enhance reflectiveness, delineates concerns of maturing educators, and summarizes meditative steps of reflective practice…

This study had three purposes: to observe the formation and development of a teacher workgroup over the course of an academic year; to explore the connections between a teacher workgroup and the organization which supported it; and to determine the relationship between the organizational support given to the school, which was undergoing a massive…

The two reports combined here provide introductory information on consultancy work at Great Britain's Open University Institution of Educational Technology. The approach at the institution was influenced by the theories and methods developed at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and applied to group relations training. It is noted that the…

This book presents a model according to which group facilitation is the use of three forms of power applied to six dimensions of the learning process. Chapter 1 introduces the model of facilitator authority as tutelary, political, and charismatic in relation to both autonomy and holism in learning. In chapter 2, the notion of charismatic authority…

Peer action groups generally begin with adults who form a peer group because they are participating in the education or parenting of a common group of teenagers. This paper contains seven sections which address questions connected with establishing peer outreach groups for junior and senior high school students: (1) Who are "at-risk…

A study investigated whether group interaction in completing cloze passages resulted in better completion than individual work. An earlier analysis of cloze procedure was replicated with 41 community college students of English as a Second Language (ESL). The population was randomly divided into two samples. Each sample completed two cloze…

This curriculum is aimed at improving the oral communications skills of blue collar and lower management personnel as they interact in the workplace. It is intended to be workplace specific and to move the learner toward a full 12th-grade level attainment. Designed for use in a variety of settings and formats, the curriculum is divided into five…

Intended for practitioners involved in working with groups in basic education, this book provides some ideas on suitable approaches. An introduction addresses where group work takes place and why a group approach is used. A discussion of starting points covers first meetings, planning and preparing, and teaching aids. A description of a group…

One teacher of English as a second language found that Gertrude Moskowitz' humanistic approach to instruction brought about significant changes in her small and diverse class. The direct results she perceived included very strong ties within the group, mutual trust and interest, values changes, and expressions of sentiment. Indirect results, those…

Quality circles (QCs) have been considered one of the most promising approaches to improving American workers' productivity. The differences of quality circle effectiveness between active QCs (N=36) and inactive QCs (N=17) in a 3-year period were examined in a quasi-experimental field study. The dependent variables examined were the amount of…

This study examines natural language use in the bilingual, early childhood classroom in the context of: (1) functional patterns of requests and turn allocators used by Spanish-speaking children; (2) formal patterns of requests and turn allocators used by Spanish-speaking children; (3) the use of language alternation to make requests and allocate…

Thirteen of 14 secondary schools increased their educational effectiveness by participating in a long-term, 12-step change process with two significant features: several measures were applied to develop a picture of each school's effectiveness, and student involvement in the process was considered essential. Schools were categorized by…

Traditionally, group research has focused on outcome rather than process. In order to provide an efficient means of data collection and analysis in group process, the Automatic Vocal Transaction Analyzer (AVTA) system was developed to generate an objective chronography of conversation vocalizations, pauses, turntaking, switching, and…

The verbal interaction and problem-solving behavior of groups of high and average ability learners were compared during computer-assisted cooperative problem-solving to determine the problem-solving behaviors that relate to success within this context. Thirty-six fourth grade students were assigned to groups of three to form 12 groups, six of high…

A study examined the phenomenon of burnout in social service agencies, approaching burnout as a symptom of organizational communication patterns rather than a characteristic inherent in or developed within a particular individual. Sixteen working teams (defined as three or more people in a person-oriented service, who are perceived as a team by…