Once teaching-learning events are conceptualized as inter-discursive encounters, it becomes clear that mathematics classroom talk is rife with invisible pitfalls. There are many types of unacknowledged discursive gaps, some of them necessary for learning and some potentially harmful. Such gaps may exist also between the teacher's intentions and…

This article uses a cultural-developmental framework to illuminate the interplay between collective and individual activity in the mathematical reasoning displayed in a university Masters level lesson on fractals. During whole class and small group discussions, eleven students, guided by an instructor, engage in inductive reasoning about the area…

Although making errors in the learning process is common, it is usually perceived by students as something negative and a potential threat to self-esteem. Such perception often prevents students from considering errors as learning opportunities. By using errors as integral elements of the learning process within the science classrooms, and…

In this article, Tim Taylor, a teacher and tutor for Mantle of the Expert, and Nicole Winter, a primary school teacher and course participant, discuss a long-form Mantle of the Expert course run by the National Education Union in 2018-2019. They conclude that, whilst the approach demands a lot from teachers in terms of professional judgement and…

Fairness has recently moved into the spotlight as a core foundation of classroom assessment (CA). However, despite its significance for high-quality CA, fairness definitions and theories have been limited in the literature. Driven by the critiques directed at the 'inadequacy' and 'fuzziness' around CA fairness and recommendations to conceptualise…

This article uses data from site visits to four Hasidic elementary schools in Brooklyn to examine how specific learning, review, and testing activities used in these schools might be applied in other Jewish education classrooms to build knowledge depth and automaticity. The literature on learning and cognition in secular subjects has identified…

This paper discusses possibilities of synthesising ethnographic data. This discussion implies a critical appraisal of the methodology of "Meta-Ethnography." Taking Noblit's and Hare's concept of Meta-Ethnography as a starting point to develop their own practice of synthesising data, the paper suggests to reconsider the possibility to…

Although many scholars in the field of mathematics education are aware that identity discourses are highly political, research in the field usually lacks a framework theoretically and methodologically to address the political dimension of identity research. Based on Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory and the case of a female secondary school…

Assessment is always considered a key component in the process of teaching and learning. A major role is being played by ICT in making the process of assessment easy for teachers. As the use of ICT is increasing, the assessment is made now in a new and innovative manner. While employing ICT in assessment, the recording of responses and providing…

The meaning of a certain policy is not given. It is shaped by the interaction among written policy, people, and contexts in which people do the policy (Honig, 2006). From this perspective, pedagogical reform is a complex social practice in which various actors construct and reconstruct the meaning of teaching and learning. In the case of…

This article analyses the sort of classroom talk that leads to effective learning, and some of the forces which operate against such practices. It starts with an analysis of the classroom context and the dominant patterns of interaction. These cause processes of learning to be hidden. It then develops by an analysis of effective learning,…

It is common in early childhood education (ECE), for student teachers to be asked to reflect on incidents or scenarios that occur while on practicum and relate their reflections to "theory." This process of identification and corroboration, demonstrates the student's familiarity with the dominant developmental narratives within which ECE…

The challenge of actively involving students with communication disorders in the formal education systems prompted this desktop study on some of the challenges and problems associated with students with communication disorders in the classroom. This paper examines the relationship between communication disorders and learning from a very basic and…

In Australia we face a serious problem in that over the last twenty years the quality of students' mathematical knowledge and abilities has "deteriorated to a dangerous level" (Brown, 2009, p. 3). Too few students want to study further mathematics and are "unlikely to continue its study voluntarily" (Commonwealth of Australia,…

In this theoretical paper the role of power in classroom interactions is examined in terms of a dominance continuum to advance a theoretical framework justifying the emergence of three ways of distributing power when it comes to dealing with the control over the teaching-studying-learning (TSL) "pattern of teacher domination," "pattern of…