Recent trends indicate a move away from self-contained classrooms and toward content-focused departmentalization in elementary schools. This study takes a snapshot of the existing organizational structures used in elementary schools in one district and explores administrators' beliefs and practices regarding this phenomenon. Our findings suggest…

In this article, the author offers a discussion technique: the twice-around. A variant on the circular response discussion, the twice-around engages students by beginning with students' questions, ensuring equal time for all participants and inviting discussants to build on previous contributions. In the twice-around, participants sit in a circle,…

With increasing ethnic and racial diversity in the classroom, understanding classroom dynamics and the use of space has become increasingly important. In particular, when theoretical perspectives, such as that offered by intergroup contact research, promotes the importance of contact between competing groups to improve relations. Adopting a…

This study examined the relationship between the structural classroom environment (self-contained, team-taught, and departmentalized) and student performance on the 2014 Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) in reading, Language Arts, mathematics, science, and social studies in grades three through five. A secondary purpose examined…

During the 2015-16 academic year, Georgia's Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL) piloted three professional development models for Georgia's Pre-K teachers. All three models focused on the Instructional Support domain of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System™ (CLASS; Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008) and used resources developed by…

Quality design and appropriate space organization in preschool settings can support preschool children's educational activities. Although the relationship between the well-being and development of children and physical settings has been emphasized by many early childhood researchers, there is still a need for theoretical design guidelines that are…

As a part of classroom management, teachers face the question of how and where to seat their students. However, it is far from clear what considerations teachers have when making seating arrangements. Therefore, in this study seating arrangement considerations from 50 teachers in grades 4-6 of elementary school were assessed. In Phase 1, teachers…

Could new types of pedagogy that involve more classroom projects and peer instruction encourage school districts to replace outdated furniture and redesign classrooms? Or could new classroom designs using modular furniture have an impact on how teachers engage their students? These are just a few of the questions that educators, instructional…

This research report uses elements of autoethnography and mixed research to share the efforts of an academic to engage his students during classroom instruction. Participants included 28 science students from a regionally accredited university in Southern Africa, who were taking many sections of a research course. The researcher rearranged…

In an online class, students need instruction, incentive, and structure to ensure substantive levels of interaction and participation. This article provides tips that can keep online students fully engaged with one another, so that no one feels as though they are in "a classroom of one."

Despite the crucial role of teachers in fostering children's academic learning and social-emotional well-being, addressing teacher stress in the classroom remains a significant challenge in education. This study reports results from a randomized controlled pilot trial of a modified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course (mMBSR) adapted…

This study examines how bilingual second-grade students perceived of their reading competence and of the work of reading in two contrasting settings where texts were regularly discussed: a monologically organized classroom (MOC) and a dialogically organized classroom (DOC; as determined by prior analysis of classroom discourse). Interview data…

The positioning and movement of the teacher in the classroom are fundamental to the pedagogical process. Specific spaces in the classroom take on certain meanings because of the nature of pedagogic discourse that occurs on the site and the positioning and distance of the site relative to the students and the teaching resources. Spatial pedagogy is…

Multilevel modeling techniques were used with a sample of 643 students enrolled in 37 secondary school classrooms to predict future student achievement (controlling for baseline achievement) from observed teacher interactions with students in the classroom, coded using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System--Secondary. After accounting for prior…

Recently, the use of stereoscopic three-dimensional (3-D) projection displays has increased in geoscience education. One concern in employing 3-D projection systems in large lecture halls, however, is that the 3-D effect is reported to diminish with increased angle and distance from the stereoscopic display. The goal of this work was to study that…