The purpose of this study was to discover methods and practices that have led to successful collaboration between school librarians and classroom teachers. A qualitative design with a phenomenological approach was employed to discover the lived experiences of six credentialed school librarians and six classroom teachers who have successfully…

Discusses elements of successful cooperative planning for middle school teaching teams. Considers definitions for content goals, learners, and effective co-teaching. Describes planning of instructional units, cooperative grouping, roles and responsibilities for co-teachers, and tiered activities for a cooperative literature study. (JPB)

The Massachusetts Middle Grade Regional Alliance Network, a program that provides collaborative professional-development opportunities to middle-grade educators, is summarized in this document. The goal of the regional alliance is to increase the collaboration between all institutions working with early adolescents in order to improve school…

Asserts that successful teaming requires training, practice, and support structures and that it often comes unaccompanied by training or instructions. Presents a conceptual model of the factors that affect team performance, and describes the three categories of the framework, their usefulness, and examples of pertinent studies within each…

Discusses the affordability of implementing interdisciplinary teaching teams and block schedules in middle schools. Argues that the benefits of these school schedules and models make them worth the investment of time and money it takes to implement them. (JPB)

This study analyzed the opinions of exemplary middle school principals concerning what constitutes highly effective interdisciplinary teams. The schools that the principals represented were chosen according to the Department of Education's, Phi Delta Kappa's, and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's assessment of threshold…

Discusses the development of a teaching team structure in one middle school, describing efforts to redefine curriculum, assessment, scheduling, and teaming to foster new roles and relationships for students and teachers. (JPB)

In this booklet, a group of middle school teachers offer suggestions on how other teachers can similarly enhance their own school's service learning program by initiating and sustaining a service learning task force. The teachers begin by explaining why they developed a service learning task force and list some of the benefits of having a service…

Discusses ways to implement interdisciplinary teams to create high performance learning communities for students. Considers team tasks and needs, applying team tasks to responsive school structures, and enhancing instruction through flexible time use. (JPB)

The Teacher Advisor Program (TAP) is an innovative developmental approach to counseling that directly involves teachers as advisors to 18 to 20 students, with whom they meet both individually and in group sessions. An introductory chapter that cites the need for a developmental approach to counseling in contemporary schools and the potential role…

A special educator and speech and language pathologist made inclusion and collaboration a reality in middle schools. They stopped delivering services in self-contained classrooms and started meeting students' needs in regular classrooms via team teaching. The changes eliminated labels and stigmas and fostered higher self-esteem and success. (SM)

Presents the first year's methods and initial findings from Project Destiny, a three-year study that attempts to enhance the knowledge and strategies of professionals, parents, and community teams for working with middle school students having emotional or behavioral disorders. Initial findings and analysis of those findings are presented. (KW)

Schools across the United States are creating teacher teams in ever-greater numbers. "Teaming" refers to assembling a group of teachers from different disciplines and/or grade levels who work together as a "core group" responsible for teaching a subset of the school's population. This brief examines some of the potential conflicts between teacher…

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)

The Southern Regional Education Board partnered with the not-for-profit organization Project Lead the Way (PLTW) to develop a program connecting challenging academic courses with a pre-engineering program of study. The programs goal is to increase the number and quality of engineers and engineering technologists by providing the following items:…