In 1991, as an experiment, the Director of the Writing Center at Siena College (a comprehensive college with a Franciscan tradition, located in a suburb of Albany, New York), agreed to team-teach a "Scientific Writing" course with a colleague who is a biologist. As they worked together, it appeared that for the biologist, knowledge was…

A public school in Brooklyn, New York, has developed a system in which handicapped children are integrated into the life of the school. Special education classes are paired with nonhandicapped classes. They share a variety of activities, including presenting assembly programs or plays, going on joint field trips, and sharing appropriate physical…

This paper examines the relationships among administrative support, interdisciplinary team functioning, classroom practices, and student outcomes. It is premised on the need to move beyond examinations of the team process and explore the effects of processes on student learning. The report is based on a systemic research project that studied 60…

The physics-industrial arts partnership is a program developed to strengthen high school students' theoretical and practical knowledge within the general areas of physics. It is designed for two groups of students--science students enrolled in physics classes and industrial students enrolled in woods, metals, auto mechanics, or electronics. The…

This paper examines the experience of one school in southern Ohio in implmenting an interdisciplinary pilot program during the 1993-94 school year. The Connections program at Cedar City High School was designed to encompass the content areas of English, science, and social studies. The program derived its name from its interdisciplinary goals of…

This paper reports findings of a study examining the nature of collaboration between special educators and general educators in two elementary schools. In addition, personal perspectives are presented on the linkages between conducting research and gaining experiences as a special educator at one of the elementary schools the year following…

Teacher collaboration is characterized by joint work; shared responsibilities; and the existence of high levels of trust, respect, and mutuality. This paper presents findings of a study that identified some of the forms and contents of self-initiated collaboration among high school teachers. Data were gathered through interviews with 10 teachers…

Historically, teachers have primarily worked alone in their classrooms, have served as deliverers of standardized and textual materials, and have been managed. Now, however, they are expected to work in teams, create active-learning curricula, and manage themselves. This paper examines a self-initiated team of K-6 grade teachers working in a…

This study took an in-depth look at the collaborative work of teachers engaged in curriculum restructuring, and explored how individual teachers' perceptions inform and are informed by such collaboration. The objective of the study was to explore how teachers' individual knowledge, experiences, and curriculum orientations affected their…

The Leda Study, a research project, examined Sweden's team teaching system. The working conditions of teacher teams in different types of school organizations are described, with a focus on group decision-making and problem-solving processes. Methodology involved observations of teacher teams in four schools; interviews with teachers, team…

This paper calls for the collaboration of general educators and special educators as cooperative teaching teams to better serve diverse student populations. Research in Anne Arundel County (Maryland) indicating significantly higher passage rates on statewide minimum competency tests, by students (n=343) in co-taught high school classes compared to…

A collaboration among teachers, education researchers, and computations scientists is described. The collaboration sought to apply advanced information technology in the K-12 classroom. In the Syracuse University Living Schoolbook project, developers created prototype Education Information Infrastructure (EII) services, conducted teacher team…

This study examined how professional learning communities develop, using cross-subject teams within the context of HUMANITAS, a program designed to promote teachers' professional growth and effectiveness by creating a voluntary "community of learners" for teachers and students. Data were gathered from teacher interviews, team…

The Netherlands' Basic School Education Act mandated that nursery and primary schools be structurally integrated into "basic schools" for children aged four to twelve by 1984. Inservice training courses, called IVB, were set up to prepare nursery and primary teachers for the new system according to the professional goals of continuity,…

This paper briefly describes two projects--one in the United States, one in England--that studied professional learning communities (PLCs). Part I of the paper describes the two projects. The American project is called the Creating Communities of Continuous Inquiry and Improvement project. The purpose of this study was to document and examine…