This naturalistic observational study examined teacher-child interactions in a third-grade science classroom. Of interest was the extent to which the quality of teacher-child relationships was associated with various categories of interaction, and students' understanding of science concepts. Teacher-child relationships of an intact class of 17…

This study focused on the differentiation practices of second- and third-grade teachers in mathematics and reading comprehension lessons. Preconditions for differentiation, classroom organization, and how teachers dealt with students of different ability levels were investigated through observations, using a time-sampling instrument. Data of 43…

Classroom talk patterns are notoriously resistant to change. This article examines changes in one fifth-grade teacher's discourse practices and beliefs as she and the author engaged in inquiry-driven professional development. Discourse analysis of class discussions and qualitative analysis of transcripts of professional development sessions…

This paper describes strategies used by novice biology teachers to exert sociolinguistic control over conversations when teaching unfamiliar subject-matter content. These discourse control strategies were identified in a year-long study of teacher subject-matter knowledge and its effects on teaching, and are illustrated in three lessons taught by…

This study explored how one third-grade teacher facilitated daily peer-led discussions around articles from a local newspaper. Two students were assigned to select and summarize an article, then lead a whole-class discussion with the teacher's help. The teacher differentially scaffolded engagement with newspaper articles, adaptively responding to…

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…

This study investigated associations between teacher-student interaction and students' persistence to complete written electron configurations in a high school chemistry classroom. Analyses of the interactions were guided with an Expectancy-Value framework to identify the discourse strategies used by the teacher to build engagement in a classroom…

Socioconstructivism has been established as a prominent and intriguing learning theory, and consequently, pedagogical practice. This study focused on the introduction of constructivist pedagogy to secondary social studies pre-service teachers. Students' engagement with each other and the course instructor was a primary concern to mitigate student…

School literacy has been identified with specific ways of talking about texts, especially during teacher-led lessons. This paper considers school literacy through a focus on talk about error correction during a time of individual writing activity in an early years classroom. Conversation Analysis is used to develop descriptions of error correction…

In this paper we present findings from an empirical study-in-progress that investigates how a teacher integrates technology, specifically an Interactive Whiteboard (IWB), to teach multiliterate practices when reading multi-modal texts. This research was a collaboration between a teacher and a team of university-based researchers as they used…

This article reports on the results of a descriptive study of wait-time in first-year high school foreign language classes. Over 7500 classroom events were recorded and coded in order to measure and find the variance in time of 3270 instances of post-solicitation and post-response wait-time. Results are discussed. (Author/DF)

A sample of 280 undergraduate students were selected for a study to determine the effect of tendentious and nontendentious humor in college first lecture presentations on students' perceptions of classroom communicative climate. Findings are discussed. (MT)

A study identified characteristics that 43 kindergarten teachers used to describe themselves and students toward whom they held positive attitudes. Teacher self-perceptions and descriptions of favored students were examined. Results indicated that teachers used a common set of characteristics to describe themselves and those students they regarded…

The achievement levels of college students taking a bioethics course who demonstrated high and low degrees of speech anxiety were studied. Students with high speech anxiety interacted less with instructors and did not achieve as well as other students. Strategies instructors can use to help students are suggested. (Authors/PP)

The results of this study indicate that analysis of teachers' verbal behavior according to specific purposes reveals differences that are masked when the purpose is disregarded. (JD)