The League of Professional Schools is a practitioner-driven, school-initiated reform effort founded on the belief that those closest to students have the capacity to improve schools. The league now has 62 member schools working on action plans. The league's three guiding premises are shared governance, action research, and instructional focus.…

The Canandaigua City (New York) School District successfully incorporated educational technology into a capital project, thanks to efficient planning. Planners should build a team, shape a vision, work backwards toward specifics, keep the plan flexible, put off hardware decisions, choose the best software, invest in training and support, and…

Recent federal and state initiatives have analyzed American health needs and highlighted strategies for improvement. This article describes a collaborative partnership model that links academia with health practitioners in preparing health educators. The Baylor University health education model continues pragmatic traditions of American higher…

British high school students (n=120) participated in a management exercise in which teams prepared a marketing contract, drafted a promotional leaflet in French, and gave a marketing presentation to hotel management. The exercise developed teamwork, decision making, and leadership, as well as other skills valued in the workplace: bilingualism,…

The organization is a complex living system comprising four levels: individual, face-to-face team, group-divisional, and policy-strategy. This article applies one framework of organizational levels to the university context and shows how a focus on successful task completion on each level provides a paradigm for effective administration. (17…

Analyzes the communication training received by over 4,000 workers as part of an effort to implement a team concept production system at a General Motors plant. Presents an overview of the team concept training. Discusses five barriers to effective training, four successful instructional methods, and implications for business communication. (RS)

Discusses cooperative learning strategies that lend themselves to working on computers. Advocates the use of learner-centered software. Describes the essential ingredients of cooperative computer lessons. (SR)

This unit is designed to strengthen critical thinking and problem-solving skills by allowing students to assume the roles of 1992 Winter Olympic Games planners who make preparations for the event. A reproducible data sheet serves as a resource. Hands-on activities and a critical television viewing activity are included. (IAH)

Narrates a proposal writer's experience over five weeks as a member of a team writing a grant proposal on the design and implementation of a practice-oriented master's degree program on manufacturing education and training. (SR)

Describes an interdisciplinary project at Mankato State University in which a team constructed a solar car and competed in SUNRAYCE '93. (SK)

Self-directed teams (SDTs) are small groups of employees responsible for an entire work process or segment, expected by some to be the workplace wave of the future in terms of organization and peak performance. SDTs work to improve their operation or product, plan and control their work, and handle day-to-day problems. (JOW)

Used group development stage theory to investigate team development patterns in an academic setting. Twenty-nine teams of undergraduate college students enrolled in a study skills improvement course met weekly for five weeks and completed the Team Development Rating Scale at the conclusion of the meeting. Found some support for three patterns of…

Principals, familiar with school personnel, goals, and operations, are a logical leadership choice for establishing an effective decision-making process. School-based management offers potential for organizational change geared toward teacher empowerment. Principals must first encourage open communication and trust and help staff develop…

Interviews with 15 presidents of diverse colleges and universities investigated the ways in which the administrators perceived their administrative teams as useful. The presidents had very different approaches to teamwork, using them for utilitarian, expressive, and cognitive functions ("real" teams) or in more limited ways ("illusory" teams).…

In Brookline, Massachusetts, two classroom teachers learned that restructuring the teaching profession had to begin with restructuring the school. Discouraged by disappearing colleagues and dissatisfied students, these teachers began a team teaching and internship project called the Learning/Teaching Collaborative and sought ways to further…