Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2005

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Gregory Ulm

Second Advisor

Robert Boyd

Third Advisor

Stephen Heck

Abstract

Working in teams is common throughout all areas of American society and research by Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross, and Smith (1994), Bensimon and Neumann (1993), Buckley (2000), DiPardo (1999), Erb (1997), and others have described its use in business and secondary schools. Since the implementation of Public Law 221 in Indiana, general education teachers and special education teachers have been working together to better instruct students with Individual Education Plans (Gable & Manning, 1999; Gately & Gately, 2001). However, very little has been written on the elementary instructional team and the interaction of its teammates. Analyzing data collected during the 2003-04 school year at the Center for Inquiry, a magnet school in the Indianapolis Public Schools, the qualitative case study describes five elementary instructional teams and examines benefits of and impediments to teaming. Through the use of individual interviews, observations of team planning time, focus groups, and the examination of school documents, the researcher gained insights into those characteristics of teams that increase a teams' chance for interacting at a higher cognitive level. Defined leadership, shared goals, a common underlying belief system, and a desire to work together enhance a team's ability to operate beyond a logistic or social level. In addition, the researcher concluded that staff development specifically designed to address the operation of teaming is necessary for optimum team interaction.

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