This paper describes how the movement of students with severe disabilities to more inclusive settings impacts on the team process, particularly with regard to the development, implementation, and evaluation of communication intervention. First, the characteristics of transdisciplinary teams as they operate in more inclusive settings are described,…

Three broad themes run throughout restructuring reforms: decentralization, collaboration, and accountability. The California Legislature recently established a statewide school restructuring demonstration program to help determine whether California educators can make restructuring work. This analysis examines the concept of school restructuring,…

Project SIGN was a year-long school site improvement process conducted in four schools in one system. A school Improvement Groups Network (SIGN) Team included a site-level administrator, several teachers, and higher education, central office, and other resource persons cooperating in school improvement. SIGN provided collegial, focused,…

One of the main advantages of the naturalistic approach to classroom research is that the observations are of natural phenomena, occuring in circumstances which the researcher ultimately hopes to generalize. Some problem areas are associated with this approach, however. Observers must obtain complete and accurate records of classroom activities…

A project to expand the participation in research by the education faculty of the member institutions in the Atlanta University Center is described. The primary objective was to provide an opportunity for black scholars to participate in research with emphasis on issues confronting black communities in the 1980s. The focus was to enhance the…

A case study describes how a rural local education agency (Allegany County, Maryland) developed a comprehensive staff development system. It presents some contextual and theoretical background information, summarizes the problem as perceived by key actors, and then describes a series of activities resulting in the development of the comprehensive…

The development of a conceptual framework for the design and management of planned institutional change for continuing education programs is described, based on a change project developed by Hanna and Pollicita. Conceptual approaches to planned change in complex organizations and the views of Havelock and Lindquist are considered. The importance…

This manual on developing teamwork at the computer provides cooperative learning activities for grades K-10 which promote the development of academic, computer, and social skills. The manual is divided into three sections: (1) "Getting To Know Each Other"; (2) "Group Cohesion"; and (3) "Group Problem Solving." The first group includes 10…

An approach to occupational therapy (OT) in a rural school is described which utilizes a combination of direct service, monitoring, and consultation. A collaborative style of OT consulting is used, which calls for the therapist to join the child study team when motor-related problems are identified. The approach provides continuous and…

Quality circles have proliferated in organizations throughout the 1980s, but their success depends on careful planning and monitoring, and on an awareness of social psychology and group dynamics. This presentation accordingly evaluates some of the assumptions of the literature on quality circles and suggests ways in which social psychology…

Making substance the leading edge of educational leadership means building a team committed to developing strategies for achieving a vision of change; thus, the team becomes a motivating implementation network of individuals who choose to support the vision and follow it through to reality. For team building to succeed, interpersonal skills must…

This document presents one module in a set of training resources for trainers to use with parents and/or professionals serving children with disabilities; focus is on community advisory committee leadership training. The modules stress content and activities that build skills and offer resources to promote parent-professional collaboration. Each…

This inservice training module was designed as part of the Child-Centered Inservice Training Project (Syracuse, New York) for use with paraprofessionals in educational programs for children with developmental disabilities. Use of the materials is recommended to encourage team problem solving, to practice new skills, and to provide ongoing support…

This paper describes Michigan's strategy for defining and assessing employability skills. A statewide task force, appointed by the Governor, defined an initial list of academic, personal management, and teamwork skills. The skills from this list were more specifically defined for a questionnaire that was mailed to a random sample of over 7,500…

This resource manual has been compiled to facilitate collaboration between teachers and speech-language pathologists (SLPs), to describe types of communication disorders that SLPs work with, to identify practical pre-referral techniques for classroom implementation, and to outline goals and objectives used in remediating speech and language…