Date of Award
1-1-1991
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Center for the Advancement of Education
Advisor
Wanda M. Slayton
Committee Member
Paul Belomy
Keywords
articulation, barriers, decision making skills, facilitation, first grade teachers, grade levels, group decision making, interviews, kindergarten teachers, preschool teachers, principals, problem solving, program continuity, skill building, surveys, teacher attitudes, teacher isolation, training
Abstract
This practicum was designed to improve preschool, kindergarten, and first grade teachers group decision making skills to enable articulation to occur more frequently and comfortably to encourage program continuity from grade to grade for children. A second aim was to reduce teacher isolation through shared skill building and focus on problem solving related to barriers to articulation.
The writer used a pre and post training survey, follow up interviews of principals, and two and one half hour training targeted to preschool. kindergarten and first grade teachers at two schools to determine previous skills and attitudes toward group decision making skills and improvement in articulation across the three grade levels.
Although facilitation was not provided as originally planned after the training, results indicated there was an increase in the number of teachers who identified an enlarged repertoire of group decision making skills, more connections being made informally and some formally between teachers at different levels, increase in awareness that teachers themselves could do something about improving articulation across grade levels.