This brief paper summarizes recommended practices that teachers and administrators serving in supervisory roles can take to ensure the effectiveness of paraeducators working with students who have disabilities. Recommended practices are grouped into four general areas: (1) assign appropriate responsibilities and tasks (preferably by the…

This guide is intended as a resource for school administrators, school leadership teams, and other teacher leaders as they learn about implementing professional learning teams (PLTs) in their schools. PLTs are teams of four to six teachers who come together to help each other improve student learning by changing classroom instruction. This guide…

Leadership in a Collaborative School has been written for those who are involved in some level of collaboration to improve education--or who soon will be. This report provides evidence-based research and professional wisdom as tools for self-reflection, dialogue, and action. These can, in turn, lead to more effective decision-making and education…

This paper describes the use of student peer evaluation, a form of 360-degree performance assessment, to provide student input to the overall grades in college classes in which students participated as teams. The paper discusses the experiences of two faculty members using the approach with both graduate and undergraduate students. Lessons are…

Management of student teams in information systems (IS) courses so that students learn how to participate in teams effectively is an important task for IS professors. However, most research on this topic applies what is learned from student teams to teams in the work world, not to the academic environment. Three professors at two universities in…

The "All Means All School-to-Work Project" was a 3-year federally-funded collaborative between the Institute on Community Integration and the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning. The Project was dedicated to finding out what works for all learners when it comes to access, benefit, participation and choice within school-to-work…

This handbook is designed to help educators set the stage for collaboration and teamwork by teaching how to become a SMART School using focus, reflection, collaboration, and leadership to set strategic and specific, measurable, results-based, and time-bound goals. The progress made in reaching these goals can then be measured using the…

There is a growing interest among organizations in identifying and nurturing Communities of Practice. Delineating what is and what is not a Community of Practice (CoP) is not a clear-cut task. One specific area of difficulty is distinguishing between a team and a CoP. Because there are strong similarities between the two, it is often helpful to…

Universities have historically encouraged individual academics with research expertise in a discrete area of study to undertake research and teaching in their discipline. In this process academics have had full autonomy, from the discovery of knowledge, the method used to integrate and interpret it, and the means used to convey it to students and…

This study investigated virtual team members' and leaders' perceptions of the role of the leader, and hindering and helping forces within virtual teams and their host organizations for developing leaders of such teams. It addresses the expressed need of virtual team leaders for the field of HRD to guide leadership development for this emerging…

This book is a resource for educators in any setting who are trying to implement school support teams. New legislation requires states to establish systems of intensive and sustained support for schools that receive Title I funds. School support teams are to become the primary component of these systems. These support teams, external groups of…

This paper offers reflections on various presentations at the March 1999 convention of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development in San Francisco. The presentation, "Links between National Standards and Successful Classroom Strategies," is guided by two questions: (1) How are teachers, schools, and school districts promoting…

This study investigated the perceptions of teachers regarding their own professional development along five distinct constructs (teaming, time, organizational support, communication, and professional responsibility). It also compared the perceptions of teachers utilizing a team-based approach to professional development with the perceptions of…

This workbook is designed for leaders and members of work teams in educational and social-service systems. It presents in a systematic fashion a set of tested facilitation tools that will allow teams to work more efficiently and harmoniously, enabling them to achieve their goals, to deal directly with both personal and work-related issues that…

This book is part of a series of case studies that demonstrate better ways to educate Ohio's students. The case study is part of the Transforming Learning Communities (TLC) Project, designed to support significant school-reform efforts among Ohio's elementary, middle, and high schools. This report describes the implementation of an innovative…