Imagines the possibilities if middle school teachers worked together cooperatively for educational change. Provides data from one such collaborative effort experienced by two middle school teachers. Claims that such collaboration can be an exciting and challenging addition to many teachers' professional lives. (HB)

Interdisciplinary teaching helps students see how knowledge and tools within individual disciplines can be brought together to address problems or issues of concern to mankind. Team teaching within seminars allows students to witness and engage in disciplinary interrelations. (MSE)

Describes how coteaching can enhance reflective practice. Three phases of coteaching help promote reflective practice and professional growth are described: building trust and setting goals via initial interviews, reflection-on-action, and reflection-in-action. Recommendations for staff developers are included. (SM)

Participating in a transition to a middle-level school provides the most potential for professional growth within a given school culture. In this article, a former middle school principal shows how a content-oriented, somewhat inflexible veteran seventh-grade social studies teacher reluctantly embraced middle-school teaming and eventually…

Discussions with exemplary Colorado general and special education coteachers led to development of three metaphors for the coteaching process: (1) yin and yang (the uniqueness and unity of the two teachers); (2) the dance (the rhythm, fluidity, and automaticity of effective collaboration); and (3) the particle and the stream (the thriving of…

Describes a team-taught, interdisciplinary college honors course on politics and literature, including the origins and theoretical underpinning of the course, issues related to the intersection of the disciplines, evolution of the teacher's role in the course, and outcomes. Concludes that despite the difficulties of interdisciplinary team…

Describes the developing role of paraprofessionals in special education and other educational settings. Suggests that the paraprofessional role should be dynamic and expanding, limited only by the competence and motivation of the paraprofessional. (CJM)

Describes how using traditional methods to grade students' written compositions forces evaluators to undertake simultaneously two incompatible tasks, responding and assessing. Suggests that, because of variations in grading, team grading procedures be used as a workable method of arriving at fair and reliable composition grades. (EL)

Teacher training programs should permit elementary teachers to specialize in either language arts/social studies or mathematics/science, and prepare them for employment in departmentalized teaching situations. Advantages of such an approach are discussed, as are changes that would be required both at the elementary school level and at teacher…

Discusses the experience of including a deaf and academically delayed student in a middle school classroom. Notes the team teachers' and students' efforts to modify instructional and social situations to benefit all students, including modifying assignments, participating in class activities, using the community as a classroom, and assigning…

Whatever the past achievements of our schools, very few today bring about student learning even remotely up to the minimum requirements of a nation such as the United States; small improvements in the educational system will be of little consequence in light of the huge deficits and the country's increasing needs. Most of the large, complex plans…

Argues that language programs should result not only in competent language use but also in reading for enjoyment. The advantages of a whole language approach in achieving this goal are discussed. Strategies for incorporating this approach into traditional programs by developing literature-based reading units as extensions of basal readers are…

This reply to a commentary (EC 600 858) on a previously published paper (EC 230 267) dealing with the regular education initiative (REI) argues that a critical element in managing mainstream classrooms is use of team approach, that existing visions of the future are tenuous, and that integrated student placement is a preferred condition but not…

This analysis of the changing role of the special educator to that of the inclusion specialist reviews the logic of these changes, presents results of research on the role of the inclusion specialist, analyzes the limitations of these changing roles, and presents an alternative view of professional roles in which teachers share the teaching of a…

Two university educators use reflective dialogue to discuss processes they went through in understanding the political nature and assumptions of their own pedagogical practices as they searched for methods which would promote teacher empowerment and actively involve students in shaping course curriculum for a language arts class they team taught.…