Attending college, for many immigrant families, is a critical step in achieving the American Dream. This essay, written as a reflection and response between professor and student, explores the conflicting messages young community college students negotiate and process as they move through the City, revealing how knowledge learned in the college…

This commentary to Ha and Kim's article suggests three ways to expand the interpretive functions of framing to explore and support marginalized students' participation in collaboration and learning, based on our comprehensive review of Ha and Kim's and other relevant studies. We argue that framing can be a useful tool for (1) understanding both…

Restorative justice (RJ) is a philosophy and set of practices that center harms and needs. Within a classroom setting, an RJ pedagogical approach invites a process of shared learning that attends to critical issues of equity, power, and voice. Utilizing an autoethnographic approach, this manuscript includes critical reflections from three faculty…

As technology advances, learning analytics is expanding to include students' collaboration settings. Despite their increasing application in practice, some types of analytics might not fully capture the comprehensive educational contexts in which students' collaboration takes place (e.g., when data is collected and processed without predefined…

A first-person essay on the ways that Cégep teaching is different from teaching at a university. The reflection explores how belonging -- an "inness" -- is enacted within a creative arts department by focusing on various experiences from being hired to navigating teaching online during the pandemic. By doing so, the author recognizes how…

Nationally known young adult author Chris Crutcher shares his thoughts on how teachers can help students who are dealing with trauma in their lives.

As teachers, instructors, and educators, we strive to prepare our students to become global citizens and equip them with a degree of intercultural competence, where they can survive within a global economy and an interconnected world. However, we are sometimes too focused on the broader global picture and often overlook an essential component…

In this article, the author shares his fear that students will become accustomed to an educational experience that lacks joy and fun as a result of the changes made to education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He and his teaching colleagues have noticed that when students are learning virtually, they act much more as receivers of knowledge than…

Resulting from the collaboration between five practicing professionals and an LIS faculty member, this article illuminates the experiences of librarians and archivists who engage with LIS students on a continuous basis as guest speakers in LIS classrooms. The phenomenological approach helps to elicit first-hand accounts that encapsulate…

How can middle school mathematics teachers navigate their roles as authorities in managing classroom democracies while providing their students with opportunities to exercise their rights? The concept of complementarity (Vithal, 1999) acknowledges that a teacher's authority is not always in conflict with students' rights or agency, but instead a…

In our response to Tilhou's article published last issue, "The Morning Meeting: Fostering a Participatory Democracy Begins with Youth in Public Education," we share and discuss ethnographic data from Morning Meetings in two U.S. elementary classrooms. We detail ways the democratic potential of Morning Meetings is being cultivated in…

The issue of class size is a complex and contested topic that has divided opinion for many years. Whilst many teachers believe that smaller class sizes assist in enhancing outcomes, a number of policy influencers, policy makers and researchers argue that it has little influence on success in learning and that decreasing class sizes is not…

Supportive learning environments are often characterized as safe spaces--and for good reason. When students feel seen, heard, and validated, the classroom becomes a sanctuary, one in which developing learners are more likely to engage and explore. Fostering that kind of positive environment requires educators to invest in a child's physical and…

In this response, Scott Titsworth analyzes similarities among the forum essays and then offers ideas for how instructional communication scholars might adopt greater situational awareness in research, theory, and application of their work. [Other essays in this forum include: (1) FORUM: Interpersonal Communication in Instructional Settings: The…

Karen Gross is an author, educator and advisor on diverse issues along the educational pipeline. Her current research focuses on student success and the impact of trauma on learning, psychosocial development and health. Sadly, the issues on which she focuses have taken center stage with the coronavirus pandemic and the literally thousands of…