This article explores how two elementary school students responded to their teacher's invitation in a civic classroom to make a difference to the world. We consider how the teacher framed the construct of civic efficacy and how the students refracted these ideas in their navigation of a civic education project. Closely analyzing these students'…

Findings from two studies are discussed in relation to the experiences and challenges faced by teachers trying to implement effective group work in schools and classrooms and to reflect on the lessons learnt about how to involve pupils with special educational needs (SEN). The first study reports on UK primary school teachers' experiences of…

A case study examines a 5th-grade teacher's orchestration of discourse and interaction to create opportunities for English language learners to participate in the repair of mathematical errors during a unit on finding the area of geometric shapes. The findings detail how the teacher used gestures in grounding her questioning, revoicing students'…

This article describes a new construct for coding the social communicative performance of school-aged children as they interact with peers and teachers in the classroom. The Social Communication Coding System (SCCS) allows clinicians a way of describing how children actually spend their time during the school day by observing ongoing behaviors…

Teachers possess several strategies to fine-tune their purposive interactions to children's needs. Our study investigates which strategies teachers use in their goal oriented interactions with pupils, whether differentiation is perceptible in the way they interact with children whom they define as "children at risk" as compared to the…

A description of an intervention strategy that was designed on the basis of the initial level of interaction of an isolate preschool child with peers and adults is presented. The results of this case study are discussed. (Author/AL)

In this paper a rationale for the use of non-participant observation in curriculum development is presented. An assessment of the University of Georgia Anthropology Curriculum Project's Race, Caste, and Prejudice (RCP) provides a case example of the use of this qualitative model in educational research. The researcher's assessment of RCP focuses…

This article explores the use of improvisation (improv) as a lens for viewing and describing teacher-child interactions. The author describes the relationship between the principles of improv and the characteristics of responsive teaching, and how improv can be used as a lens for seeing relational activity. The author hypothesizes that improv…

Illustrates how to use ethnographic techniques to acquire a better understanding of classroom dynamics. The article focuses on the characterization of "success" in an Italian class through analysis of interaction patterns and purposes of the participants. Findings reveal the need for a continuity of teacher and students' goals, methods, and forms…

The paper looks at rules for discourse in the classroom and how they may complement or conflict with each other in facilitating the learning of language disordered children in the classroom or therapy session. Six critical skills are identified which children need for a good teaching-learning interaction. They are: attention, turn taking,…

Designed by the Ilinois Bilingual Evaluation Center as a pilot project, the purpose of this study was to explore the process or nature of events in a bilingual classroom and to investigate the feasibility of using observational techniques to examine this process in an evaluation context. The subjects for the study were three children of Spanish…

The application of behavior modification procedures by Head Start teachers in the classroom and the remedial application of programmed instructions to children with preacademic deficiencies were studied in 11 classrooms located in three Kansas towns--Lawrence, Topeka, and Kansas City. Data were collected throughout the 1968-1969 year on both the…

Videotaped group work lessons of an elementary school third grade class provide material for study of the non-verbal aspect of group behavior. A system of activity categories is developed and a typology of pupils' working methods in group study distinguishes types and characteristic forms of activity. The following activity categories are used in…

In this age of greater accountability, local school districts within the USA increasingly use summer school programs as an intervention service to provide students who have failed to meet classroom, district, or state performance requirements with the opportunity to "catch up." Although such programs attempt to provide varying types of…