"Virtual" conferences can be frustrating when interactions trigger information overload, topic drift, or aimless conversation. Long-distance learning improves when educators identify objectives, define participants' roles, create an ambience, nourish conversation, provide feedback, adjust the pace, support and recruit members, summarize…

About four years ago, a rural Maine middle school abandoned its computer classes and integrated computers into its curriculum. Now, instead of using educational software or spending lots of time on training, students are writing stories with word processors, illustrating science diagrams with paint utilities, creating interactive reports with…

A reaction to bureaucracy and its inherently authoritarian management and fragmented work styles, work-team organizations broaden and integrate responsibilities while focusing on outcomes. In April 1991, Lake Washington (Washington) School District successfully reorganized its central office staff, building administrators, and support personnel…

Because strategic planning can have a powerful effect on a district's future and its use of resources, district leaders must anticipate the need for extensive communication with all segments of the community at every planning stage. As the experience of Tacoma (Washington) Public Schools shows, regular communication is crucial to success. (MLH)

The collaborative school provides a climate and a structure that encourage teachers to work together with the principal and other administrators toward school improvement and professional growth. (Author)

Cooperative learning focuses group activity on preparing all members to succeed on individual assessments. Research findings show significantly greater achievement for the cooperatively taught class. Describes the elements of two comprehensive cooperative methods and proposes a model of a cooperative elementary school. (MLF)

A training model for prospective teachers of cooperative learning involves teachers creating a cooperative classroom for themselves in a workshop setting. The model combines experience, perception, cognition, and behavior. (MLF)

Team Assisted Individualization (TAI) in mathematics and Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) are among the best researched and most effective of all cooperative learning methods. TAI was developed to apply cooperative learning techniques to solve individualized instruction problems. Relevant research on both methods is discussed.…

Massachusetts middle school's Classroom-by-Committee program is based on town council model of subcommittees. Students briefed in self-management techniques choose committees that meet their needs while helping them develop critical thinking skills, set goals, identify problems, and generate solutions. Teachers facilitate learning, guide students…

By merging the roles of teacher and administrator, a stronger and more stable system can emerge. Joint problem solving and decision making lead to innovative ideas. (Author/MLF)

Discusses positive developments occurring in the teaching profession and the changes needed to nurture them. Teacher empowerment does not mean banishing principals, but enabling teachers to participate in group decision-making and make key choices affecting their own work. Teachers have always been critical to effective schooling. (MLH)

Reliance on the "delegation model" in public education has created a fundamental gap between families and schools. The Accelerated Schools Project has helped two poverty-afflicted, minority-populated elementary schools in the San Francisco Bay Area enlist parents and mobilize community agencies to achieve shared improvement goals.…

An interview with Jaime Escalante, the determined teacher-hero of the movie "Stand and Deliver," and winner of many prestigious teaching awards including the Presidential Medal for Excellence in Education, in recognition of his successes with at-risk students in East Los Angeles. (TE)

Two priorities of a Colorado elementary school (increasing the quality of parent-school partnerships and modeling and building student self-esteem) led to the school's parent-observation process. An accountability team selected two parent-observers, who worked with the principal and two teachers to develop a training guide, an observation outline,…

An Illinois elementary school principal realized that the district's "yellow tablet" teacher-evaluation system was not working. In lieu of observations by the principal, teachers agreed to visit one another, sometimes in teams, and the principal volunteered to substitute for observing teachers. The new process demolished barriers between…