This study introduces performative identity as a lens for understanding student participation in discursive classroom routines and potentials for fostering student agency and enhanced learning. We argue that student negotiation of performative identities can facilitate productive transformations of individual and group trajectories. This study…

This paper describes use of social network analysis to examine student interaction patterns in a Grade 5/6 Knowledge Building class. The analysis included face-to-face interactions and interactions in the Knowledge Forum[R] Knowledge Building environment. It is argued that sociogram data are useful to reveal group processes; in sociological terms,…

Describes the development of the Multidimensional Audioconferencing Classification System (MACS), an instrument for the tabulation, analysis, and interpretation of audioconferencing instructional interactions. MACS draws on three theoretical and empirical streams: (1) systematic small group interaction analysis; (2) systematic classroom…

SYMLOG, a method for capturing group members' perceptions of their interactions, is a useful research methodology which can also be used to teach group competencies. Drawing from social psychology, management, and communication disciplines, researchers using SYMLOG have captured issues of leadership, cohesion, and group processes over time. Using…

Author discusses employing knowledge of group dynamics in conducting a series of sessions with teachers focused around the interaction of teacher and child in the classroom. It is a method of reaching more youngsters, and presents the psychologist with an opportunity to use skills for which he is uniquely trained. (Author/PC)

In 3 of 5 Australian grade 8 math classes, 5 students, most high ability males, dominated teacher-student interactions in whole-class activities. These students' involvement was facilitated by behaviors of teachers and students and by management problems prevailing in these classes. In a fourth class the teacher systematically involved a larger…

This study is divided into two parts: (1) a review of the theories of group development, particularly as they relate to a classroom setting; and (2) a discussion of the research program which grew out of the theoretical positions. Two to six teachers in each of five junior high schools were involved in using group interaction as a teaching method.…

This module is designed to facilitate communication among students and between students and teachers by conducting selected classroom exercises which will increase pupils' understanding of communication processes and improve their communication with each other. The module consists of a pretest, posttest, and four exercises entitled: Introductions,…

This book, one of three Teacher Resource Booklets on Classroom Social Relations and Learning developed at the Center for Research on Utilization of Scientific Knowledge at the University of Michigan, discusses the theoretical background of role playing and gives a step-by-step discussion of how to use role playing in the classroom. There are…

Changes in the teacher's authority structure as well as changes in the content of student talk during peer response sessions occur over the course of a school year in a first-grade classroom. In the beginning of the year, the teacher, a beginner in the Teachers College Writing Project, dominated the talk during share sessions, while the students'…

Four combinations of teacher verbal and nonverbal evaluative behavior were studied within a controlled microlesson. Two male and two female teachers presented each of the four combinations--(a) verbally and nonverbally positive; (b) verbally positive and nonverbally negative; (c) verbally negative and nonverbally positive; or (d) verbally and…

Classroom discourse is evaluated for the contribution it can make to students' learning in groups. Data recorded from primary age children working at computers are categorized as exploratory, cumulative, and disputational talk. The teacher's role in making explicit strategies that optimize exploratory talk is discussed. (Contains 31 references.)…

Classroom interaction may be described in terms of communication events, i.e., sequences of teacher-pupil communicative behaviors separated from preceding and succeeding sequences of behaviors by natural boundaries. Communication events may be institutional (related to managing the classroom and meeting the expectations of the institution), task…

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…

An investigation of the interaction patterns of Polynesian and Pakeha (New Zealanders of European extraction) children and teachers in school and play areas of Auckland, New Zealand was undertaken to discover possible ethnic differences in modes of social interaction relevant to learning. Observations of children (ages 2 to 11) and their…