Background: Although professional development (PD) programs often use video, extraneous information during video viewing can distract teachers. We developed a discourse visualization tool, the Classroom Discourse Analyzer (CDA), to support teachers' reflections on classroom discourse in video-based PD workshops. Methods: We used a randomized…

Effective professional learning is acknowledged as a key lever to improve teacher practice. However, many studies report significant variation in the effectiveness of the types of programs on offer. Recently, there has been a move from the traditional single event, passive approach to more collaborative and ongoing forms of professional learning.…

This study used the Quality Talk and dialogic teaching approach with a group of secondary school teachers (N = 7) to train their facilitation of dialogical discussions by small groups of students. The study used video and audio analysis to assess the teachers' observable behaviours during these discussions, before and after professional…

This Conversation Analysis study investigated how a speech and language therapist (SLT) created opportunities for communication aid use in multiparty conversation. An SLT interacted with a child with multiple disabilities and her grandparents in a home setting, using a bliss board. The analyses demonstrated a practice where the SLT employed…

The purpose of this mixed-design study was to examine the impact of three types of professional development activities aimed at improving conversations in four targeted preschool classrooms. A review of the literature was used to identify the professional development approaches and the importance of improving teacher-child conversations as a…

The authors of this article investigate how a performance module was integrated into a graduate course on children's literature to provide teachers with a space to re-enact and challenge the institutional tensions that were impacting their work as multicultural educators. Based on a combined ethnographic and systemic functional linguistics…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of considering both fidelity and adaptation in assessing the implementation of evidence-based programs. Design/methodology/approach: The current study employs a multi-method strategy to understand two dimensions of implementation (fidelity and adaptation) in the Strong African…

This study was originally designed to explore the impact of a distributed approach to developing curriculum leadership among schoolteachers. Previous papers have focused on reporting evidence of teacher learning in the process of engaging teachers in various types of curriculum decision-making in an innovation project based on interview data. This…

This article reports on a case study of negotiation that occurred in peer group oral interactions under assessment conditions. Discourse analysis was used to illustrate how participants negotiated and co-constructed the assessment format itself as well as meaning exchange sequences. Analyses of the data point to the advantage of using peer group…

This article presents the results of a three-year study of "Gamestar Mechanic" (www.gamestarmechanic.com), a flash-based multiplayer online role-playing game developed for the MacArthur Foundation's digital media learning initiative by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Gamelab in New York. The game's objective is to help children…