This original teaching idea uses an adaption of the STEM activity the Paper Tower Challenge to have students examine task and maintenance roles as well as non-functioning behaviors in small groups. While problem solving as a small group, students navigate conflict and frustration, assume various small-group roles, and then reflect on their own and…

Self-advocacy, self-management, self-regulation, and self-knowledge are complex terms, often considered forms of self-determination. Whatever term you may use, helping young adults with intellectual disability (ID) make authentic decisions about their own goals and behaviors often results in passive agreement. Even though advancing…

One of eight papers from Project Seed, this paper discusses an 8-week program on conflict resolution used among fourth- through sixth-graders at one school. The program described could easily be implemented in other schools. Through the program, students are trained in a step-by-step mediation process; those students who become Classroom Mediators…

Argues that teachers should lead their students to a broader study of people and their needs. Offers strategies that can be used in social studies classes to help students become aware of crisis situations and how to deal with them. (FL)

The paper is intended as a guide to the levels curriculum for teachers of emotionally handicapped secondary students. The levels curriculum is introduced as a motivational system for behavioral improvement based on a series of steps with increasing student priveleges and responsibilities. Students develop individual goals and learn communication,…

Examines the dynamic common to the English-as-a-Second-Language classroom in which the teacher takes from the student the burden of the next step in solving a problem, identifies four reasons this is inappropriate, looks at why teachers do it, and offers techniques for handling such situations. (MSE)

Describes alternative form of evaluation that enables the teacher to assign a grade to students problem-solving skills as they participate in a discussion to solve a problem. Discusses room arrangement, the role of the audience, grading, and secondary benefits of the method. (MDH)

Provides specific techniques and tools to help students improve their self-assessment skills based on the evaluation component of the Big6 information problem-solving process. Highlights include an "Ask & Answer" sheet, formative assessment, group participation assessment, and scoring guides. (LRW)

A class council can collectively decide what components will make up the instructional system in an elementary school class. A class council is a friendly assembly made up of the students and the teacher; it meets to discuss and make decisions about all aspects of the instructional system, including objectives, grading, and materials. Each student…

The Kids in Dispute Settlement mediation program for grades 3 through 12 recognizes that conflicts are a part of everyone's life and that students can responsibly and constructively solve their own conflicts. Mediation uses the help of a third party to facilitate the conflict resolution process by working out differences non-judgementally. Student…

Provides excerpts from videotaped dialogue between two third grade students and their interactions with their teacher while solving a counting problem to describe student thinking and communication during the task. Discusses the teachers' role in the dialogue and implications for classroom practice. (MDH)

This booklet describes a process for creative classroom problem solving that can be adapted to many types of problems. The booklet's five sections correspond to five phases of the problem solving process. Each section begins with a description of the phase and then provides suggestions for using that phase in the classroom. The sections conclude…

Even in elementary school, students suffer from bullying and harassment at the hands of other students. Often, educators resort to using stricter forms of behavior modification to stop bullying. But usually this fails to solve the problem while threatening the student-teacher relationship. Chosen by the National Bullying Prevention Campaign for…

A major goal of ESL education is to teach students how to speak English well enough to converse spontaneously and naturally with native speakers. Discourse analysis provides an understanding of those skills second language learners need to acquire to converse with native speakers and an understanding of how these skills may most beneficially be…