Focuses on teaching students to be reflective, non-impulsive, and responsible decision makers and problem solvers - while emphasizing essential literacy skills. The programme uses cooperative learning methods, including small-group brainstorming, problem-solving, and role-playing activities. Students learn skills such as self-control, listening, respectful communication, giving and receiving help, and working cooperatively.

"School counseling staff, as well as teachers and others running advisory or related groups, will find this manual to be useful for helping students succeed in middle school. At this critical point in their lives, young adolescents can move in a positive and hopeful direction, or they can enter into a negative, downward spiral." "SDM/SPS provides students with basic school survival skills and research-based strategies for responsible decision making and problem solving. SDM/SPS uses a positive, project-oriented approach to help reduce school violence, foster social and emotional intelligence, improve academic effort and attention, develop multicultural perspectives, and prevent at-risk students from giving up on school." "The authors present a thoroughly tested and effective approach for working with a broad spectrum of learners, including those with emotional and behavioral disorders. The manual includes numerous reproducible worksheets and assessment tools for tracking progress. It provides strategies for supporting academic achievement, improving media literacy skills, encouraging parent involvement, and implementing a school-community service project."--BOOK JACKET.

"Developed over three decades of implementation in a wide range of schools, this research-validated curriculum focuses on teaching students to be reflective, nonimpulsive, and responsible decision makers and problem solvers - while emphasizing essential literacy skills. It is ideal for classroom use and can be adapted for small group settings." "The program uses a variety of cooperative learning methods, including small-group brainstorming, problem solving, and role-playing activities. Students learn skills such as self-control, listening, respectful communication, giving and receiving help, and working cooperatively and fairly in groups. The manual includes numerous reproducible worksheets."--BOOK JACKET.

This volume describes proven, practical techniques for promoting key skills in students for everyday social, academic, familial, and vocational success. Based on the work of a highly acclaimed, 15-year, ongoing multisite project, the approach is designed to help professionals encourage the development of enduring life tools and prevent substance abuse, HIV infection, violence, and other behavior-related problems. The program is directed toward children in primarily K-8 populations at high, moderate, and low levels of risk, in both regular and special education contexts.

*International Book Awards Finalist It can be messy and overwhelming to figure out how to solve thorny problems. Where do you start? How do you know where to look for information and evaluate its quality and bias? How can you feel confident that you are making a careful and thoroughly researched decision? Whether you are deciding between colleges, navigating a career decision, helping your aging parents find the right housing, or expanding your business, Problem Solved will show you how to use the powerful AREA Method to make complex personal and professional decisions with confidence and conviction. Cheryl’s AREA Method coaches you to make smarter, better decisions because it: Recognizes that research is a fundamental part of decision making and breaks down the process into a series of easy-to-follow steps. Solves for problematic mental shortcuts such as bias, judgment, and assumptions. Builds in strategic stops that help you chunk your learning, stay focused, and make your work work for you. Provides a flexible and repeatable process that acts as a feedback loop. Life is filled with uncertainty, but that uncertainty needn’t hobble us. Problem Solved offers a proactive way to work with, and work through, ambiguity to make thoughtful, confident decisions despite our uncertain and volatile world.

The problem that gives rise to this book is dissatisfaction with social science and social research as instruments of social problem solving. Policy makers and other practical problem solvers frequently voice disappointment with what they are offered. And many social scientists and social researchers think they should be more drawn upon, more useful, and more influential. Out of the discontent have come numerous diagnoses and prescriptions. This thoughtful contribution to the discussion provides an agenda of basic questions that should be asked and answered by those who are concerned about the impact of social science and research on real life problems. In general, Cohen and Lindblom believe that social scientists are crippled by a misunderstanding of their own trade, and they suggest that the tools of their trade be applied to the trade itself. Social scientists do not always fully appreciate that professional social inquiry is only one of several ways of solving a problem. They are also often engaged in a mistaken pursuit of authoritativeness, not recognizing that their contribution can never be more than a partial one. Cohen and Lindblom suggest that they reexamine their criteria for selecting subjects for research, study their tactics as compared to those of policy makers, and consider more carefully their role in relation to other routes to problem solving. To stimulate further inquiry into these fundamental issues, they also provide a comprehensive bibliography.

Strategies for effective problem-solving and decision-making are efficient ways for professionals to solve the moral dilemmas that confront them in their daily practice. Feelings of wellbeing and positive outcomes, often impeded by the failure to make decisions, can result when strategies are developed from psychological theories and positive mindsets. Ethical Problem-Solving and Decision-Making for Positive and Conclusive Outcomes is a pivotal reference source that synthesizes major psychological theories to show that any moral dilemma can be solved by using the correct positive mindset based on psychological theory and superimposing a basic ethical template to reach a conclusive decision. While highlighting topics such as cultural identity, student engagement, and education standards, this book is ideally designed for clinical practitioners, psychologists, education professionals, administrators, academicians, and researchers.

In Problem Solving, Decision Making, and Professional Judgment, Paul Brest and Linda Hamilton Krieger have written a systematic guide to creative problem solving that prepares students to exercise effective judgment and decision making skills in the complex social environments in which they will work. The book represents a major milestone in the education of lawyers and policymakers, Developed by two leaders in the field, this first book of its type includes material drawn from statistics, decision science, social and cognitive psychology, the "judgment and decision making" (JDM) literature, and behavioral economics. It combines quantitative approaches to empirical analysis and decision making (statistics and decision science) with the psychological literature illustrating the systematic errors of the intuitive decision maker. The book can stand alone as a text or serve as a supplement to a core law or public policy curriculum. Problem Solving, Decision Making, and Professional Judgment: A Guide for Lawyers and Policymakers prepares students and professionals to be creative problem solvers, wise counselors, and effective decision makers. The authors' ultimate goals are to help readers "get it right" in their roles as professionals and citizens, and to arm them against common sources of judgment error.

"We put together a book that would offer readers multiple perspectives, insights, and directions in understanding social problem solving as an important theory that has driven wide-ranging scientific research and as an important means of training to empower and elevate the lives of individuals. We believe that social problem solving can help individuals free themselves from the problems they face or the distress that these problems cause. We recognize that some problems may be difficult or impossible to solve, but we believe that considerable value remains in understanding and promoting effective social problem solving to foster the novel insights and methods in which problems that seem insurmountable ultimately may be conquered in incremental steps, across time and across individuals. Moreover, we believe that problems can be solved in different ways. When problematic situations or circumstances are manageable or controllable, a good problem solver tries to find ways to change them for the better. However, when such situations or circumstances are unchangeable or uncontrollable, one can still use problem solving to find ways to accept and tolerate with less distress that which cannot be changed or controlled"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

The authors draw upon scientific studies, theories, site visits, nd their own extensive experiences to describe approaches to social and emotional learning for all levels.