Betty Dillon-Peterson, the director of staff development for the Lincoln (Nebraska) schools, relates key experiences which shaped her career and also her views about how staff developers can work effectively. She advocates design of a special course of study for staff developers. (PP)

Describes the circle group, a highly structured approach used to explore a theme for problem solving, personal growth, and teaching a specific personal growth system. The circle group is recommended for people who are basically mentally healthy. It may include group chanting, sharing of concerns and feedback. (JAC)

The personal student journal is a little-used technique that holds special promise for instructors working in diverse educational settings. Journals can be used as an instructional tool for students, as a means for nurturing self-directed learning, and as a bridge to personal growth. (PP)

A counseling approach encourages students' development of job-applicable, career-transferable skills to meet the changing demands of specialization, automation, mobility, urban growth, and industrial trends in the job market. These include writing; speaking; research; and analytical, organizational, leadership, interpersonal, and quantitative…

Addresses problem areas encountered by families with learning-disabled children: parental self-blame and mourning, family life, the child's biological-psychological-social growth, and the child's achievement of independence. Argues that social workers have skills needed for effective remedial intervention. (RH)

Alec Dickson recalls his 30-year involvement with experiential education in Nigeria and Britain. He notes a change in emphasis from physical skills and stress to personal commitment, and asks how the essence of such commitment can be reinjected into ordinary educational systems so that it can be shared by many. (BRR)

Presents guidelines for the practice of minority counseling, focusing specifically on objectives for counseling Puerto Rican youth in the areas of self-development, knowledge of the world of work, and career planning. (SK)

As a result of serious accidents and illness many persons undergo death-rebirth experiences. The changes in attitudes, personality, and beliefs that sometimes follow these experiences reflect rebirth and reveal a fundamental human strategy for coping with the threat of death. These experiences have great therapeutic potential. (Author)

Describes the characteristics and effectiveness of the I/D/E/A Principals' Inservice Program, in which principals form collegial support groups to encourage one another in planning and implementing personal professional development and school improvement projects and in committing themselves to permanent programs of continuous improvement. (PGD)

Barbara Stone from Wilkes Community College (North Carolina) provides recommendations derived from a survey of old age care facility residents, administrators, educators, and community officials concerning deficiencies in their care unit program. Debbie L. Floyd describes Scott Community College's (Iowa) consumer model for credit options for human…

Investigated the identity formation in pregnant adolescents (N=30) as compared to a group of nonpregnant adolescents (N=30). Used the Ego Identity Scale to obtain a measure of ego identity. Analyzed data in relation to six hypotheses. Found pregnant adolescents scored significantly lower on the Ego Identity Scale. (RC)

Explores the notion of "gerogogy"--teaching aimed at the elderly. The author indicates directions that gerogogical research may take and speculates that a theoretical framework for gerogogy may begin to emerge from our current knowledge about the human development, learning, and teaching of the elderly. (CT)

Imitation by infants functions in two ways: (1) to help the individual understand a puzzling event, and (2) to indicate mutuality with another person. Although changes in cognitive understanding influence the course of imitation, the occurrence of imitation in specific situations may be governed by the interplay of the two functions that imitation…

Relatively brief interactions with a commercial game that involved blocks and matching patterns are shown to cause a significant improvement in children's performances on the WISC-R Block Design subtest. Two experiments are described using 10-year-old children in game and no-game conditions. (Author/CM)