Improving the leadership skills of the school business manager will promote organizational structure, norms, and policies. A district staff-development program in consensus skills can simultaneously address problems and develop skills. (MLF)

The Future Problem Solving Program involves teams of students from grades 4-12 in creative problem solving. The teams complete practice problems and competitive problems. Winning teams go on to state and international competitions. Other program components include noncompetitive problem solving for primary-level students, community problem…

Discusses strategies for encouraging student participation in the development of an Individualized Education Program for a child with a disability. Outlines the significant steps in the process including developing a vision, prioritizing learning needs, collaborative problem solving, setting goals, and planning the intervention. (CR)

The purpose of this study is to analyse pupil welfare team meetings as an institutional context for handling dilemmas of schooling. Our focus is on how difficulties encountered by teachers and pupils are categorized and accounted for by team members (teachers, school administrators, and various experts). As a discourse community, the pupil welfare…

Effective problem-solving skills are critical in dealing with ambiguous and often complex issues in the present-day leaner and globally diverse organizations. Yet respected, well-established problem-solving models may be misaligned within the current work environment, particularly within a team context. Models learned from a more bureaucratic,…

The time and effort spent during the first days of a new semester are key to the success of the class that lies ahead. What happens during these first days can set a tone that inspires students to work actively and cooperatively to achieve success in the new semester, or to sit back and assume a "here we go again" attitude. In this article, the…

This set of four short videocassettes promotes the use of promising practices advocating fully inclusive education for students with diverse learning abilities in their neighborhood schools. The first video, titled "Seven Steps to Problem Solving," presents a problem-solving process that empowers teams to work together to meet diverse…

The Family Support Act (FSA) of 1988 provides opportunities for educators to form linkages with other agencies to strengthen families and help them move toward self-sufficiency. The FSA affords professionals chances to forge critical interagency connections and expand the range and capacity of programs for learners at risk. A strategy for forming…

Implementation processes and outcomes at a junior high school of the Mastery in Learning Project, an NEA-sponsored national school transformation effort, are described in this paper. Based on the principle that a school's decisions should be made by its faculty, the project seeks to develop teachers' ability to creatively and cooperatively use…

Reporting on a public relations course at Indiana State University, this paper presents specific guidelines for students to use in converting the classroom theory of creative problem solving, persuasion, promotion, publicity, and management into the actual staging of a special event and/or fund raising. The paper offers suggestions in the areas of…

A literature review is presented on four alternative models of delivering special services to learning-disabled students. The literature search was conducted to identify pedagogically sound, effective, and efficient program approaches as alternatives to resource room programs. The four models identified from a search of the Canadian, American, and…

College students, ranked as high, medium, or low ability, were assigned to homogeneous or mixed-ability groups of two through five members for a test. Performance proved proportional to the number of high ability group members. The underlying group process was inferred through social decision scheme analysis. (Author/SJL)

An elementary school-based team (SBT) problem-solving model is described. Intended to provide recommendations for initial screening, assessment, and instructional alternatives for students with learning problems in mainstreamed settings, the SBT is discussed in terms of benefits, potential problems, developmental sequence, functional processes,…

Characteristics of group facilitator are similar to those of information specialist as one who gathers information, clarifies questions, builds up and breaks down knowledge, presents balanced points of view, and defines problems and strategies for resolution. Information specialist has opportunity to meet organizational needs through traditional…

HRD (human resources development) is tackled by the author, who argues against HRD's psychological construct; the assumption that for every problem, there is a theoretical and workable solution; teamwork as opposed to individualism; listening as a discrete skill; if it's Japanese, it's better; and HRD's theory of leadership. (CT)