Planning meetings requires careful attention to three essential elements: purpose, participants' needs and expectations, and a suitable agenda. Meetings are great for problem solving, professional development, and team building. Serving snacks; choosing a comfy, well-arranged setting; adopting brainstorming rules; and involving teachers as…

Children aged 10-14 need to assume responsible and challenging roles as part of their adolescent development. Based on the physical, social, moral and ethical, and emotional developmental characteristics of this age, adolescents need to discover and test new skills; develop a sense of competence; socialize to develop close friendships; take part…

Discusses evolution of ergonomics and development of computer ergonomics with its sub-fields of hardware ergonomics (user-equipment-related problems including workstation design); software ergonomics (problems in communication with computers); and peopleware ergonomics (psychological impact). Ergonomic features of VDTs, keyboards, and printers are…

The popularity of home care for chronically ill or technology-dependent children has moved professionals into unfamiliar settings. Factors responsible for the relatively sudden surge of effort to place children with complex needs at home include costs, individualism and autonomy, changing views of medicine and its institutions, limits of medical…

The perspectives of a number of health professionals based on their experiences in providing death education courses are presented in essays. In "Interdisciplinary Death Education in a Nursing School" (Helen L. Swain and Kathleen V. Cowles), the development of an undergraduate elective course in death, dying, and bereavement at the…

Teaching conformity through coercion limits students' willingness to take risks and make decisions regarding their learning. In contrast, a Foxfire classroom environment that meets psychological needs empowers students to make choices about their learning, eliminates fear of failure, allows students to establish their own standards of achievement,…

This article examines psychosocial needs of learning-disabled individuals making transitions from secondary to postsecondary education and ways in which service providers can address these needs. A transition project at the University of Minnesota is described, and techniques such as individual and group counseling, disability awareness training,…

While it is recognized that self-concept and self-esteem affect the academic achievement of students, few publications have focused on the affective and psychological needs of students who are gifted and ethnically or culturally diverse. In this article, we extend the discussion of self-concept and achievement by focusing on how racial identity…

In 1993, the Queensland, Australia, Board of Teacher Registration established a working party to consider the preparation of teachers for working with young adolescents. This report from the working party summarizes the educational needs of young Australian adolescents, the preparation of teachers for working with these students, and the possible…

Primary prevention refers to activities directed to high-risk groups, within a community not yet labeled as psychiatrically ill. These activities have the purpose of preventing the onset of emotional disturbance and enhancing the level of mental health. In general, whatever contributes to human stress in a community so that the individual or group…

This collection of four newsletters focuses on abilities and problems of and services for learning disabled persons. Major articles have the following titles and authors: "From Service Receiver to Service Provider: The Learning Disabled Young Adult Moves into the Work World" (A. Roffman); "Our Children's Future in the Workplace" (F. Yauch);…

Much attention has been given to the imbalance between thinking and feelings in the educative process. Human teaching calls for merging the cognitive and affective processes into one confluent learning experience. Language learning is viewed primarily as a means for affective reflective communication. Personal growth merges with language…

The "Language from Within" program is a collation of Gestalt strategies based on the principles of confluent education and adapted for use in the foreign language classroom. The underlying principles of confluent education are: awareness of feelings as the source of personal meaning (subject matter is learned only when the student sees…

Deidentification is the phenomenon whereby siblings are defined as different or contrasting. In pathological deidentification, the natural flow of sibling conflict and reconciliation seems obstructed as one sibling is assigned the fixed identity of "devil," who constantly harasses the other, "angel," sibling. A clinical…

Part of the crisis in higher education is due to the age and tenure distribution of the faculty and their escalating future salary costs. Universities must find ways to gain financial and academic flexibility. Career alternatives that can provide inducements for faculty to leave the university are described. (Author/MLW)