The research presented explored the relationships between the purposeful use of humor by high school instructors and the development of immediacy, or relationships, with their students. This research compared the humor styles of high school instructors with the level of immediacy reported by their students via a quantitative study that utilizes…

Mathematical spaces extend far beyond the classroom and physical environments into virtual spaces. Today's students have more to consider than just their face-to-face experiences with mathematics inside or outside the classroom; they have the online perspectives of others to consider as well. To gain critical insight, we conducted this research…

Extending and challenging existing research about LGBTQIA+ life in rural educational contexts, this ethnographically informed qualitative study describes how Lulu--a white, cisgender, queer secondary English language arts teacher in a rural, public school in the Midwest--discursively constructed the functions of her humor with respect to teaching,…

In this article, I share with the reader my journey into environmental education, and how I came to understand that even an urbanite like me has something to offer. I look to the work of Indigenous scholars to frame the ways in which Indigenous pedagogies, combined with environmental, place-based, and land-based pedagogies, form a matrix of…

Research shows that humor can play an important role in students' language learning and literacy development. However, studies on how teachers intentionally enact humor as a pedagogical tool are still limited. This classroom discourse study examines the interactional construction and pedagogical functions of humor in one U.S. multilingual high…

How can comedy be used as an effective tool and truly help innovate the learning experience? This paper outlines how aspects of comedy have been creatively integrated into primary and secondary academic curricula such as English Language Arts, social studies, drama, as well as in areas of mental health and wellness. The essay demonstrates, for…

This paper reports on some aspects of an investigation on the impact of an instructional approach aimed at generating and maintaining students' interest in mathematics for secondary school students in displaced and re-settled communities in South Sudan. Two groups of Grade 11 students, an experimental group (E-group) and a control group (C-group),…

In this paper, we present a novel approach to defining, teaching, and assessing creativity by examining its origins and delineating the processes involved. The rationale for introducing this framework developed from studying existing thinking and questioning the current metrics for measuring creativity, which we posit are unfit for purpose. We…

Creative manipulations of language have long been recognized as important aspects of second language development. Research has largely examined playful language within adult foreign language classrooms; however, less attention has been given to the pragmatic use of humor among adolescent multilingual learners of English. Drawing on oral…

Although theater-based interventions have emerged as an innovative health education platform, more research is needed to understand how these interventions work and to identify factors that make them successful and replicable in adolescent populations. This paper discusses the first research project conducted on High School Sex Squads (HSSS),…

The Sex Squad is a collective of US-based college students, who create and perform monologues, scenes and musical parodies for ninth graders (ranging in age from 13 to 15). The Sex Squad is the central element in the "AMP!" programme for adolescent sexual health, developed at the University of California-Los Angeles in collaboration with…

In order to see English Teachers' attitudes towards learning and teaching proverbs, descriptive methods and quantitative approaches were used, and a questionnaire was answered by 84 English Teachers from grades 9 through 12 in two different cities Ordu, Turkey and Akhaltsikhe, Georgia.

This case study analyzes how and why student engagement differs across 581 classes in one diverse high school. Factor analyses of surveys with 1,132 students suggest three types of engaging teaching practices--connective instruction, academic rigor, and lively teaching. Multilevel regression analyses reveal that connective instruction predicts…

How can public schools improve public relations strategies, particularly in communications between teachers and students? The purposes of this study were to investigate teacher leaders' perceptions of the use of humor in the high school classroom and discover how humor might bridge instruction to student learning and strengthen teacher-student…

This case study examines a U.S. History class where a veteran teacher uses challenging primary source documents and a debate to encourage his students to think critically about history. The teacher is knowledgeable about the subject matter and articulates a clear purpose for teaching. Surprisingly, the author finds that the teacher's methods,…