An elementary school teacher implemented a practicum designed to: (1) provide a curriculum for a before and after school day care program serving primary school students; and (2) solve problems encountered in the implementation of a pilot school-age child care program. A review of the literature indicated that few curriculums had been developed…

The problem of poor school climate in an eighth- and ninth-grade center was addressed by the implementation of a school climate improvement project. The following are the primary goals of this practicum: (1) improve school attendance; (2) reduce out-of-school suspensions; and (3) improve student and teacher morale. To address these goals, a…

An elementary school principal implemented a practicum to improve school-home communication at a school where administrators believed that a history of poor communication between parents and teachers negatively influenced the school's academic and parent involvement programs. Specific practicum goals were to improve: (1) school-home communication…

This model of teacher supervision was designed to improve instruction in the Aspinwall Elementary School in the Fox Chapel School District, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The project sought to accomplish three things: improve the achievement level of underachieving students, increase teacher instructional effectiveness, and change the teachers'…

A prekindergarten teacher working in a private elementary day school developed and implemented a prosocial behavior program designed to improve the social behavior of prekindergarten students. The program focused on decreasing the incidence of 10 behaviors: (1) pouting; (2) hitting; (3) yelling indoors; (4) interrupting; (5) whining; (6) ignoring…

This practicum addressed the problem of developing and implementing a school-based in-service model that would be facilitated and presented by the elementary school teachers who were to be instructed. A literature review led to the conclusion that successful implementation could be achieved by faculty and staff ownership of the in-service model…

A 10-week practicum intervention was implemented with 67 first graders at a small, independent, university-run school in order to improve the children's affective behavior by increasing their self-esteem. The program began with a meeting with parents at which they were informed of the school's emphasis on self-esteem. In-service education was…

A practicum intervention that provided an intensive language acquisition skills program to kindergarten children performing below grade level expectation in language acquisition was designed, implemented, and evaluated. Parents were included through scheduled meetings and newsletters that were developed by the children. The program was designed…

Over a l0-week period, an elementary school teacher designed and implemented a practicum study intended to help a target group of 24 kindergartners develop crucial mathematical problem-solving skills and to prepare them for taking the Stanford Achievement Test. The objective was addressed through implementation of direct instruction, modeling,…

A screening instrument developed for this study measured the listening skills of 22 children in a kindergarten class. Children were found to be weak in four areas of listening: (1) auditory discrimination; (2) auditory perception; (3) following oral directions; and (4) listening comprehension. After these measures were administered, students…

An associate director of an independent preschool and elementary school developed and implemented a practicum intervention designed to improve five inexperienced teachers' ability to conduct parent-teacher conferences. Through self-evaluation, teachers identified skills they needed to improve. Intervention focused on preconference planning…

A program planning model developed in collaboration with primary decision makers and program planners is described in this study. A 6-month pilot test of the planning document was evaluated by a followup questionnaire of program planners and decision makers. Results indicate that a majority of the respondents viewed the planning model as…

A 10-week practicum intervention was designed to reduce deficiencies in 10 kindergarten children in southwest Florida with poor fine motor skills. The intervention consisted of daily instruction and weekly activity tests. Activities included drawing, tracing, cutting with scissors, pasting, molding with clay, various games, lacing, weaving, and…

A kindergarten teacher designed and implemented a practicum for increasing the oral language competence of 20 kindergartners in an inner-city public school. Goals were to improve children's receptive and expressive language abilities, social skills, and mastery of kindergarten curriculum objectives, and to increase parent involvement. A whole…

A program was designed to improve the reading interests of students in a rural middle school. An analysis of the problem indicated that the students were not reading many library books. One of the probable causes for the lack of interest was related to the small amount of recreational reading done by students. A search of the literature revealed…