This paper reviews program for social skills development to reduce conflicts, increase self-control, reduce instructional time spent dealing with behavior problems, and increase teacher satisfaction. The problems of deficiencies in prosocial skills were documented in three fifth-grade classes. Loss of students' recess time, and minutes of…

This paper reports on collaborative, school-based research in an Australian Research Council-funded project that focused on curriculum leadership for effective learning and teaching. Although the research addressed certain questions about the nature of curriculum leadership and its representation in varied teaching/learning contexts, it raised…

This report describes a program for increasing reading motivation and comprehension. The targeted population consisted of two heterogeneous groups of fourth grade students who attended a public school located in a northwest suburb of a large metropolitan area. The students' lack of motivation and poor comprehension skills were documented by low…

An action research project investigated the effect of reciprocal teaching instruction and use on the comprehension of seventh-grade general English students. Reciprocal teaching is a form of dialogue structured around four skills--question generation, summarization, clarification, and prediction. These techniques are used in small group…

Findings of a study that identified factors contributing to the maintenance of the collaborative action research process in public schools are presented in this paper. Specifically, the study evaluated outcomes of Project LEARN, the League of Educational Action Researchers in the Northwest, a university-sponsored school improvement initiative. The…

A program was designed to improve the progress of average and below average readers in a first-grade, a second-grade, and a sixth-grade classroom in a multicultural, multi-social economic district located in a three-county area northwest of Chicago, Illinois. Classroom teachers noted that students were having difficulty making adequate progress in…

A program was developed for improving the reading of first-grade students in a progressive suburban community in northern Illinois. The problem was originally noted by an increase in the need for support services and low standardized test scores. Analysis of probable cause data revealed that students lacked knowledge of the relationship between…

Promoting social change is the goal of the seven community case studies reported in this book. Each study is a "natural experiment" that involved long-term research, close collaboration between researchers and the host community, and the application of research methods and findings to social change goals within the community. The following reports…

The Logo Action Research Collaborative is creating a professional development program in the Newton (Massachusetts) schools which is based on action research and designed to support teachers and improve the use of Logo computer-assisted instruction in their classrooms. During the 1 year workshop, teachers work collaboratively on Logo programming…

Teacher researchers may be the essential link between the philosophy and training of higher education and the grass roots implementation at the public school level. The Teacher-Researcher (T-R) Institute has the potential of providing a catalyst for role change and a channel for research in action. This paper describes the merits and defaults of…

The Teaching Excellence Program, designed to promote faculty use of practice-centered inquiry, was conducted at a large research university (Ohio State). The program was based on a conceptualization of practice-centered inquiry that draws on action research, reflection-in-action, and action science ideas. Data collected throughout the program…

To address how and why to do research in the classroom as a teacher, this book of essays by teacher researchers prefaces each of its four sections with interviews with Cindy Myers, Ken Jones, Patricia Reed and Betty Bailey respectively. Titles and authors are as follows: "Addressing the Problem of Elsewhereness: A Case for Action Research in…

Two areas of school-university collaboration in the University of New Hampshire 5-year program of teacher education are collaborative research and collaborative supervision. This paper discusses how teachers, school administrators, and university faculty work together on research and supervision issues in teacher education. In considering issues…

A description is given of the Social Studies Professional Semester at the State University of New York at Albany, a program attempting to provide the elements necessary for the development of reflective teaching. The 16-week program is designed to reduce the separation between clinical field experiences and professional education studies for…

An investigation was made of the relationships among teachers' stages of development; their perceptions of school and classroom problems; and their reasons for participating in a collaborative action research project. On the basis of observations, logs, interviews, and introductory questionnaire data, life age/cycle profiles of each of 10 middle…