We explored parents' perceptions of their positive and negative experiences in school-based team meetings as a first step toward identifying the characteristics that may promote meaningful parent participation. Parent members of a Midwestern suburban school district's special education advisory group provided open-ended descriptions of their…

In an effort to compare team-level learning performance resulting from different instructional variables and settings, this study examined how online and blended delivery learner groups compared in terms of learning outcomes, collaboration, and perceived quality of instructional variables. Results indicated that the two teams were not different in…

Group projects form a large and possibly growing component of the work undertaken for assessing students for postgraduate degrees in business. Yet the assessments sources, methods and purposes result in an array of combinations that the literature on assessment fails to capture in its full complexity. This paper builds on a new framework for…

We report findings from the second phase of a study of co-operative, group-based assessment in Pharmacology for second-year undergraduates at The University of Queensland, Australia. Students (n = 285) enrolled in the 2006 Bachelor of Science degree program completed a group-based assessment task (weighted 10% of their course). Blended teaching…

The Closing the Gap Clearinghouse was established by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to bring together evidence-based research on overcoming disadvantage for Indigenous Australians. The Clearinghouse provides access to a collection of information on what works to improve Indigenous people's lives across the building blocks identified…

What turns a good school into a great school? With today's schools under enormous pressure to make adequate yearly progress (AYP), the answers are more important than ever--and this essential guidebook gives K-12 administrators and educators scores of proven, concrete strategies to help their school succeed. Authors Martin Ratcliffe and Melissa…

The College Board, NASSP and ASCA believe that the principal-counselor relationship is a dynamic and organic relationship that evolves over time in response to the ever-changing needs of a school. The goal of an effective principal-counselor relationship is to use the strength of the relationship to collaboratively lead school reform efforts to…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates parent-professional collaboration. But difficulties between parent and professional collaboration seem to persist. These difficulties do not seem to be related to a lack of mutual respect or lack of good intentions. Perhaps difficulties exist because of a lack of common ground.…

This article describes the development of the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness. The authors used the teamwork literature to create potential items, which they tested using two surveys of college students (Ns = 2,777 and 1,157). The authors used exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to help them select…

The United States Association for Young Physicists Tournaments (USAYPT) held its annual February Tournaments on Feb. 9-10, 2007, at the North Carolina School for Science and Mathematics, Durham, NC. Young physicists' tournaments are theoretical and experimental research-based team competitions described more fully at the USAYPT website:…

When it comes to professional development, state and local education institutions frequently support the priorities of determining content area needs and organizing the delivery of the professional development, but less often comprehensively evaluate the training's overall effectiveness. Taking current research and practical application into…

In an effort to improve the retention rate in their entry-level information systems course, the authors of this article integrated a team-learning approach into its instructional format. This article describes the steps taken, including how team learning compares with the traditional approach based on lecture with occasional group exercises, and…

Illinois Wesleyan University created the Trust the Wisdom in Student Teams (TWIST) project to develop student teams into essential components of IT support. This article explains how and why to apply the TWIST concepts. When deciding if a student team is a good choice, to meet a particular institution's IT support requirements, several things need…

This article discusses the various sources of athlete stress and the strategies that coaches can use to help young athletes cope with it. The information is based on a study with a competitive adolescent soccer team and its two coaches, and a review of the coaching and sport psychology literature. The suggested coaching strategies can help to…

Each year, students in Kittanning Senior High School's Principles of Technology (POT) classes have a design challenge, usually beginning with CO2-powered or Maglev-powered vehicles and progressing to such challenges as soap-box cars or radio-controlled airplanes. The author's recent POT class challenged them with the most exciting challenge yet:…