Discusses the need for trainers to evaluate the training requests they receive to determine whether they are appropriate for the situation. Suggests how trainers can prepare themselves for roles as performance consultants. (JOW)

Explains socially constructed cognition in terms of learning organization concepts (personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, systems thinking). Describes the enterprise culture, learning universities, and workplace learning. Examines the role of consultants in promoting organizational learning. (SK)

A project designed to reduce accidents in sugar factories used metaphors as tools for creative analysis, as ways of creating emotions, and as methods for fostering unconscious learning. When change is the goal, images, stories, narratives, and fairy tales were shown to be more effective than formal conceptual learning. (Contains 32 references.)…

Presents results of a case study that illustrates problems of employee surveys as part of the organization development process and makes recommendations to practitioners for effectively managing a sound approach to performance improvement. Provides a look at an inexperienced consultant and the distractions that resulted in a failed organization…

A Minnesota high school used a consultant to evaluate operations in the principal's office, guidance office, media center, and technology services department. Staff will focus on recommendations concerning communications, process improvement and evaluation, technology implementation, performance and behavior coaching, active listening, customer…

Four conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC) cases were coded, and scores on the variables "domineeringness" and "dominance" were calculated. Results suggest that consultants and consultees were generally consistent with each other in their levels of domineeringness and dominance. Consultants received slightly higher scores than…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to assess whether the effort of consulting firms and branch organizations to establish a shared and standardized methodology as a means to professionalize consulting and as a standard for training is possible and sensible. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted among Dutch management…

The Presenters' Collaborative Network (PCN) was started in 2002 to support the creation of a corps of teacher-consultants who would lead workshops for the Rhode Island Writing Project (RIWP) at local schools and conferences. The PCN is a group of teachers, past participants from summer institutes or year-round embedded programs in schools that…

The 2004 authorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act affords an opportunity to shift the classification of Learning Disabilities (LD) from a "refer-test-place" to a Response-to-Intervention (RtI) service delivery model. As a result, there are implications for the professional activities of school…

This article reports on the results of a survey examining the perceptions of university faculty regarding the importance of graduate programs preparing reading specialists for a leadership role. The results of the survey indicate that slightly more that half of the programs require a leadership course and less than half of the reading specialist…

The authors support role changes for educational practitioners who work with children and youth with disabilities as they make important transitions. Principles from critical pedagogy and disability studies are summarized to provide a new theoretical framework to support role changes. Rather than needs-based services that focus on helping those…

The use, learning and transfer of workplace numeracy skills, as well as current understandings of the term numeracy, are examined in this study. It also highlights the importance of numeracy as an essential workplace skill. "Thinking Beyond Numbers: Learning Numeracy for the Future Workplace" challenges the training system and training…

It is shown how student participation in a real consulting project can be leveraged to achieve the dual goals of (i) developing statistical consulting skills in graduate students, and (ii) enhancing the instructional effectiveness of statistical methodology. Achieving these goals is the primary mission of the Statistical Consulting Collaboratory…

This article discusses a dilemma that engineering educators encounter when attempting to develop pedagogical methods: that of finding efficient and scientifically valid didactic practices. The multitude of methods offered by educational consultants is perplexing. Moreover, the popularity of commercially offered solutions such as learning styles…

This article provides a response from the perspectives of a teacher of the gifted and a trainer of teachers of the gifted. Following a brief summary of the authors' collective experience, the article highlights major issues represented by the four articles and identifies common themes across the various disciplines with respect to consultation and…