We use the theory of communities of practice and the concept of accountable disciplinary knowledge to describe how a learning community develops in the context of an upper-division physics laboratory course. The change in accountable disciplinary knowledge motivates students' enculturation into a community of practice. The enculturation process is…

Drama in Education (DIE), as an artistic and educational experience, is sufficiently evidenced in the literature as a dialogical, liberating practice of education. This article discusses a practitioner research project in a second chance adult education school in Greece, where the use of a DIE teaching and learning approach was explored in an…

Notes that the ecological perspective on observation of learning focuses on the processes of interaction while attempting to unravel them from the inside out. Concludes that this approach requires a new look at basic assumptions about its role in the construction of theory and practice, i.e., evidence of learning will require new ways to document…

Emphasizing the need for process rather than product-oriented education, this paper introduces a new conceptual model for observing the classroom as a total process. The new model is a blending of dramaturgic concepts and theory with the classroom teaching/learning process. The author draws an analogy based upon Kenneth Burke's Dramatistic…

This paper discusses several interrelated features of microethnography that are relevant and useful for the study of bilingual schooling. It is argued that an interactional approach provides a powerful way to study systematically the organization of bilingual learning environment, identify areas of difficulty, and suggest concrete interventions…

The stability of teacher behavior has been one of the most important areas of process-product research. This study was designed to investigate teacher stability in the context of math instruction across classes and times of observation in order to assess the relationship between teaching styles and student learning outcomes. Specifically the study…

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,…

A study investigated how oral discourse affects the communicative process of teaching and learning and how that process influences and is influenced by the goals and expectations of college instructors and college students. Three college classes were observed for one semester. Data were collected in the form of field notes, cassette tapes of…

The Anthropology Curriculum Study Project (ACSP) has developed a research model which is to be used to provide data for effective implementation of the ACSP course, "Patterns in Human History". The common "means-ends" model for research, which relies on one-way effects, is described and rejected in favor of an interactive,…

Teachers were designated as more and less effective according to their ability to teach specially constructed reading and mathematics curriculum units over two weeks. They were then studied to determine if their perceptions of classroom interaction and interactive decision making were different. They were also studied to determine whether they…

The need for more precise analysis of the complex educational and psychological processes which exist in special classes for the emotionally handicapped, is emphasized. A psycho-educational model, involving teacher-pupil interaction, is developed, and a procedure (the Interaction Analysis System) is formulated for observing and recording behavior.…

This report, addressed to the broad audience of cognitive scientists, examines research on cognitive change. In the introduction, background considerations are made, previous research is reviewed, and the report itself is outlined. The first chapter, "Finding Goals Outside the Laboratory," discusses how laboratory tasks can obscure research goals…