This study examined elementary pre-service teachers' (PSTs) perceptions about norms of interaction to emphasize with fourth-grade students as they worked in teams to solve an engineering design challenge. From analysis of PSTs' lesson reflections and post-unit interviews, the findings revealed a range of PSTs' conceptions for seven social norms of…

The linked concepts of "scaffolding" and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) were originally applied to the context of asymmetrical teaching and learning with a teacher or adult explicitly supporting a learner, usually a child, to achieve tasks beyond their ability when working alone. In this paper we investigate how these concepts…

This article explores the practice of one accomplished teacher who uses follow-up probes to press her fourth- and fifth-grade students to clarify and articulate their ideas more fully. Qualitative analysis of field notes, teacher and student interviews, and video recordings of instruction, and discourse analysis of reading conferences revealed…