Classroom discussions represent a common learning activity for students in schools. The prevailing discourse has focused on how to encourage as many students as possible to participate actively in classroom discussions with the assumption that only vocal students are engaged learners. The present essay critically challenges this position by…

This article argues that silence as a communication can be academically practised in the classroom as much as talk, simply because talk and silence are both essential components of everyday interaction (Nakane, 2012). These two constructs are interdependent in the sense that one would not exist without the other. Silence can be practised in two…

Self-talk has been recognised as an important tool used by children to regulate their thinking and behaviour. Existing studies typically characterise children's self-talk according to broad categories that do not allow for investigation of self-regulatory aspects of children's internalised self-talk. The findings reported in this paper are based…

As transfer researchers have begun to investigate a broader range of phenomena, they have correspondingly put forward new processes to provide explanatory accounts for the occurrence of transfer. This move coincides with a call to acknowledge the contribution of social interactions, language, cultural artifacts, and normed practices to the…

This article argues for increased theoretical specificity in the active learning process. Whereas constructivist learning emphasizes construction of meaning, the process articulated here complements meaning construction with disciplinary critique. This process is an implication of how disciplinary communities generate new knowledge claims, which…

A SYSTEM FOR CLASSIFYING THOUGHT PROCESSES IN THE CONTEXT OF CLASSROOM VERBAL INTERACTION IS PRESENTED. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM IS NECESSARY TO THE STUDY OF THE VERBAL PERFORMANCE OF TEACHERS AND STUDENTS TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF THINKING THAT IS ELICITED AND EXPRESSED IN THE COURSE AND CONTEXT OF CLASSROOM OPERATION. VERBAL PERFORMANCES…

The importance of student talk in mathematics classrooms figures prominently in curriculum and teaching standards. Student talk is a vehicle for increasing student learning and for helping teachers monitor student understanding and inform student instructional practices. Although researchers have begun to study the moves teachers may make to…

Introduces the notion of a "discourse world," that is, a set of elements against the background of which a unit of talk makes sense, and claims that several discourse worlds coexist in classroom discourse. The notion is interpreted in terms of frame theory and applied to classroom language learning. (SED)

Forty-four undergraduate women at a small liberal arts college were asked to characterize conversations with college women friends and to describe the role these women play in intellectual growth and academic performance. Results show that women are more comfortable expressing their views within female friendship than in the classroom. (MKA)

Students must have uninterrupted periods of time to process information, to reflect on what has been said, observed, or done, and to consider what their personal responses will be. After at least three seconds of uninterrupted silence, a significant number of positive outcomes occur for students and teachers. Students are more effective in…

This document reports the second year of Project IMPACT (Innovation and Motivation in Polk County for the Advancement of Creative Teaching), an ESEA Title III inservice program concerned with the need to "humanize" the process of education and the need to develop innovative teaching methods which will aid productive thinking and minimize…

Based on the idea that inference abilities are essential to comprehension, this essay discusses systematic oral questioning strategies designed to help both junior and senior high school teachers develop students' reading comprehension abilities. Questioning strategies are examined in terms of their purpose, efficiency, motivation, and required…

A research model is presented which identifies and classifies certain cognitive and affective behaviors of children in elementary school classrooms. The described three-dimensional scheme dealing with content, development, and product suggest role relationships for various support personnel who assist the classroom teacher. Observable pupil…

Children are capable of good thinking, asking perceptive questions, ferreting out implications, making applications, formulating conclusions, and making valid predictions and evaluations. Evidence indicates that these capabilities can be improved by teaching children about questions and questioning. Before such questioning strategies have much…

This paper addresses the issue of how learning in classrooms takes place. The effects of different curriculum and different teaching methods in knowledge acquisition is examined, both as main effects and in interaction with student attitudes. The role of the teacher in communicating the knowledge to be acquired is described. Teachers are viewed as…