A model for instructional decision-making and program implementation based on peer collaboration of classroom teacher

The problem was to develop a model of voluntary peer collaboration in decision making among classroom teachers which would promote their ownership of problems and solutions affecting instructional methods and evaluation.;Descriptive research was employed. Document analysis was used to develop a longitudinal study of the instructional decision making practices of the subjects prior to the introduction of the proposed model, as well as to study changes after the model was introduced and practiced. To avoid post hoc fallacy (the conclusion that because two factors go together one must be the cause and the other the effect), and to insure internal experimental validity of the teachers' profiles, an outside panel of experts independently scored randomly selected documents being used in the study. The interrater reliability between the panel and this writer was eighty-nine percent.;Two levels of involvement were sought from classroom teachers. First, an invitation was issued to teachers to form collegial groups to work on self-selected instructional problems. For the second level, invitations were issued to participate in a pilot project using peer collaboration as a means of making decisions about instructional methods and evaluation. The instructional method to be explored was student use of higher order thinking skills to process content information.;The findings of the study were that peer collaboration leads to effective instructional decision making, as teachers practice cooperative learning in the process of gathering the kind of information that enables them collectively and individually to understand instructional problems more fully. Research becomes a framework for guiding experimentation, observation, and adoption in a way that allows teachers to make their own discoveries.;Peer collaboration makes teachers' insights and ideas a part of the decision structure and provides them with communication lines with others concerned about the validity of educational opportunity. When teachers become involved in meaningful decision making, they move into leadership roles. Facing real problems in the actual work setting and becoming involved in solutions promotes a sense of educational purpose.