Discusses the pivotal role of the middle school principal in the success of collaborative teaching teams. Details team functions, selection, and stages of team development. Also discusses team meetings, reports, leader meetings, team competition, and team professional growth. (ET)

A collaborative consultation approach to basic concept instruction with 20 inner-city kindergarten children, which involved intervention by a speech-language pathologist, university faculty, classroom teacher, and physical education teacher, resulted in significantly higher performance on target concepts compared to a control group who received…

Discusses flexible scheduling in school library media centers. Highlights include integrating classroom instruction with library instruction, collaboration between classroom teachers and teacher librarians, information skills curriculum, access to the library resource center, team planning, expectations of principals, commitment to resource-based…

The development and current status of coteaching to meet the needs of students with disabilities in mainstream settings are reviewed. Issues are identified concerning resources (finances, time, and space); participants (role clarification of both professionals and paraprofessionals); and implementation (the need for documentation of coteaching…

An approach to collaboration in social skills instruction for students with disabilities or other special needs is described. The Teaching Social Skills Program involves a four-step evaluation process, with various interventions for students who either cannot or will not demonstrate prosocial behaviors. Teacher training in collaboration skills and…

Discusses team-teaching or coteaching in the special/regular education integration approach. Describes the development of integration approaches, the limits of the consultation model, the restructuring demands of coteaching, barriers to implementation, advantages to the approach, and 10 suggestions for developing coteaching in schools. (JB)

Asserts that music educators have special challenges and opportunities when considering an integrated or interdisciplinary curriculum. Discusses examples of interdisciplinary teams comprised of fine arts teachers working with teachers of social studies, literature, and other subjects. Includes illustrations of a thematic curriculum web and…

Growing student diversity, reports and government mandates, ninth-grade transition problems, and middle-school influences have produced new enthusiasm for high-school reorganization. Restructuring approaches such as block scheduling, differentiated instruction, academic teaming, house plans, career academies, heterogeneous grouping, and integrated…

Goals for undergraduate English courses typically include increasing students' critical reading, thinking, and research skills, providing literary-aesthetic experiences, and encouraging students to express themselves analytically on complex topics. Authors describe experiences in two advanced writing classes and a core literature course using…

Improving teacher preparation has become a focus of educational reform efforts. Discusses professional development strategies that help teachers grow, barriers to growth, the importance of making a career of learning, elements of effective professional development programs, effective alternatives to one-shot workshops, standards for good teaching,…

Discusses the implementation of a student-designed integrative curriculum taught by team teachers in a middle school classroom. Considers the role of computer technology in organizing the curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Describes the process of engaging students, encouraging them to develop their curriculum, and selecting and completing…

Examined types of work completed by teachers on middle school interdisciplinary teams nationwide. Data from a sample of 159 teachers on 40 teams and their 40 principals indicated no significant differences between teachers' and administrators' perceptions on degree of teacher participation but revealed significant differences within 10 measured…

Evaluated a restructured literacy methods course intended to empower teachers to teach linguistically diverse students, examining the impact of the course redesign and team teaching. Data from observations of student teachers and focus group interviews indicated that participants felt well-prepared to teach second language learners, though they…

Efforts to achieve greater curriculum integration in schools of business have included team teaching, student group projects, multidisciplinary cases, and, more recently, the use of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Although these approaches are beneficial, they tend to be implemented on an ad hoc basis rather than through curriculum…

Examined how interdisciplinary team practices and classroom instructional practices affected student achievement in high poverty middle schools in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Found that when the combined effects of family poverty level, teaming and common planning time, and duration of teaming were considered, there was a relationship…