While there is a vast literature arguing that teacher talk in whole class discussions is a determinant of quality science teaching, teachers' understanding of enacting teacher talk is under-researched. Using teacher cognition as a theoretical lens, the purpose of this study was to explore how experienced and novice science teachers in South Africa…

Students' critical thinking is often researched using quantitative tests designed to measure critical thinking. In contrast, this study qualitatively analyses group and whole-class dialogues in an interdisciplinary SSI project by focusing on students' critical thinking practices. As such, the study provides an in-depth example of an immersion…

Effective learning-teaching process is ensured when students interact and actively participate in the learning process. Though most instructors stressed the value of active participation in classrooms of universities and colleges, achieving success in eliciting it appears more difficult. There is high tendency of instructors in higher institutions…

Universities around the world are encouraging teachers to provide more constructive feedback to support student learning, but do teachers know how to distinguish constructive feedback? What pedagogical practice is considered as feedback and what is not? For example, is a rubric a type of feedback? To date, very limited research has answered these…

Purpose: Turkey is a country hosting many people of diverse religious beliefs (e.g., Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) and a great variety of ethnic origins (e.g., Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Slavs, Arabs, Romanians and Kurds). It is also subject to continuous migratory flows from neighboring countries and beyond. Due to these factors, it has become…

This study sought to analyse, using the Mathematics Discourse in Instruction framework, teachers' explanatory talk when introducing standard units of length in standard 4 in Malawi. The study analysed teachers' use of content and pedagogical practices for introducing standard units of length and how that made the concept of standard units of…

This essay explores some of the problems that emerge from the imposition of a very narrow conception of the English literary heritage on pupils across England. It considers the role of government and school policy -- and of teachers and pupils -- in mediating set texts, and the ways in which problematic aspects of these texts are questioned and…

Capturing progression in students' formal knowledge and employability skills is essential in higher education but evokes questions concerning how to assess and monitor progression. While methods for capturing students' formal knowledge progression have traditionally been at the forefront, methods for capturing employability skills have been less…

In this study we are concerned with the informal dimension of formative assessment (FA) in an L2 classroom. We examine those instances that are embedded into everyday learning activities and that emerge in and through classroom interaction contingently, continuously and flexibly. Drawing on the methodological underpinnings of Conversation Analysis…

The study attempted to answer two basic questions of classroom teaching: a. what were the most common teaching practices at the elementary school level? And b. did teachers foster curiosity in children during teaching? Classroom proceedings enfolded various teaching activities that might lead to a knowledge gap in students. 137 primary and middle…

This article presents an analysis of student initiatives in whole-class interactions. While prior research on question-answer sequences in classroom interactions has shown students to be rather passive recipients of knowledge, this article focuses on aspects of classroom interaction where students take a more active role. Following a conversation…

The endorsement of anti-corruption norms is a normative assumption in legal systems with freedom of information acts, where citizens are expected to act as monitors of the public service. Tolerance of corruption counteracts this assumption. We studied tolerance of corruption among 8th graders from Latin-American samples of the International Civic…

This paper describes teacher educators' understanding of language for classroom communication in higher education. We argue that teacher educators who are aware of their personal practical knowledge of language have a better understanding of their students' language use and provide better support for knowledge construction. Personal practical…

Teachers' grading in secondary education has been recognised as a 'hodgepodge' practice that incorporates both cognitive and non-cognitive factors (e.g. effort, participation, and attendance) to determine students' final grades. Consequently, students' grades are perceived to be an inaccurate representation of their academic knowledge. Hodgepodge…

Background: Dialogic teaching, specifically the use of argumentation in teaching, is seen as promoting scientific literacy and understanding. However, international evidence consistently shows that the prevailing modes of classroom talk are monologic. The problem is how to transform science education into dialogic and argumentative spaces. One way…