The nature of classroom practice is undergoing change as more and more adults are being brought into classrooms in response to such trends as parental involvement and the integration of children with special educational needs. The parents, teachers, ancillary staff and support workers comprising these new groups probabley fail to recognise themselves as teams, but nonetheless they are characterised by the same stresses which mark teamwork in any oter setting. This book is a guide to working together as an effective team, designed to show that they are part of a team, and employ strategies to minimise chances of failure. Gary Thomas identifies key areas of concern, including poor communication, status barriers and inadequate role definition, and offers guidelines for dealing with these stresses and tensions in teamwork.

The nature of classroom practice is undergoing change as more and more adults are being brought into classrooms in response to such trends as parental involvement and the integration of children with special educational needs. The parents, teachers, ancillary staff and support workers comprising these new groups probabley fail to recognise themselves as teams, but nonetheless they are characterised by the same stresses which mark teamwork in any oter setting. This book is a guide to working together as an effective team, designed to show that they are part of a team, and employ strategies to minimise chances of failure. Gary Thomas identifies key areas of concern, including poor communication, status barriers and inadequate role definition, and offers guidelines for dealing with these stresses and tensions in teamwork.

Find out how matching research-based principles of collaborative learning with practical action can make all group work productive group work, with all students engaged.

Successful implementation and completion of team activities requires instructors and students alike to confront challenges not present in individual work. To maximize learning, group projects need a solid lesson plan that helps students understand the benefits of group work, develop ground rules and assign responsibilities, value everyone’s contributions, and resolve potential conflicts. Teacher, curriculum designer, and “teacherpreneur” Patrice Palmer offers thirteen easily implemented, robust group-work activities formatted to foster the development of life skills. Designed with secondary and postsecondary students in mind, Palmer’s workbook takes students through the team-building process, from getting to know one another to a final evaluation of the group’s work and success. Written in a user-friendly format, Successful Group Work: 13 Activities to Teach Teamwork Skills allows teachers to choose activities that best meet their students’ needs. Make group work a powerful addition to your teaching repertoire. You may be surprised how your students rise to meet a new challenge!

"Introduces the reader on how to work together in certain situations"--

‘Tom Bennett is the voice of the modern teacher.’ - Stephen Drew, Senior Vice-Principal, Passmores Academy, UK, featured on Channel 4’s Educating Essex Do the findings from educational science ever really improve the day-to-day practice of classroom teachers? Education is awash with theories about how pupils best learn and teachers best teach, most often propped up with the inevitable research that ‘proves’ the case in point. But what can teachers do to find the proof within the pudding, and how can this actually help them on wet Wednesday afternoon?. Drawing from a wide range of recent and popular education theories and strategies, Tom Bennett highlights how much of what we think we know in schools hasn’t been ‘proven’ in any meaningful sense at all. He inspires teachers to decide for themselves what good and bad education really is, empowering them as professionals and raising their confidence in the classroom and the staffroom alike. Readers are encouraged to question and reflect on issues such as: the most common ideas in modern education and where these ideas were born the crisis in research right now how research is commissioned and used by the people who make policy in the UK and beyond the provenance of education research: who instigates it, who writes it, and how to spot when a claim is based on evidence and when it isn’t the different way that data can be analysed what happens to the research conclusions once they escape the laboratory. Controversial, erudite and yet unremittingly entertaining, Tom includes practical suggestions for the classroom throughout. This book will be an ally to every teacher who’s been handed an instruction on a platter and been told, ‘the research proves it.’

Teamwork builds cooperation, problem solving, active learning, and responsibility, all of which are increasingly important in both the classroom and the workplace. "Using Student Teams in the Classroom" is a helpful guide for all faculty who want to actively engage students with both the material and one another by using teamwork. The examples in this book are drawn from a wide variety of fields, including architecture, biology, ceramics, engineering, and English. The range of imaginative teaching strategies -- all of which include students working in groups -- is evidence of the wealth of ways in which cooperative learning can be incorporated in college classrooms. The authors bring together diverse examples and interesting applications and combine them with a solid explanation of some of the caveats of cooperative learning and deep respect for the ways in which such pedagogical changes will challenge long-held beliefs and practices. -- From publisher's description.