This chapter delves into the theoretical underpinnings of praxeological and dialogical research on the emergence of opportunities for learning in teacher-student interactivities. First, I introduce the emergence of objects of learning as a social phenomenon; then I argue for the intersubjective-intercorporeal understanding of those objects as…

Initially, the author began her teacher inquiry project by focusing on the superhero play she had been observing in her classroom and on her concerns about how it might be impacting the classroom community. Through an ongoing process of self-reflection and reading research, she was able to open herself up to interacting and engaging with the…

Defining and measuring quality in group care settings has become a central issue in the field of early care and education in the United States, particularly as states develop systems to improve child care quality. Most research and policy definitions of quality rely on a top-down perspective focusing on structural and environmental features of the…

This article examines major trends in research on the teaching process, emphasizing two models for studying classroom interactions--process-product and descriptive. Also discussed is interpersonal interaction as it is studied in social psychology. (CB)

The Munby system for coding classroom interaction is an observation system constructed to study the intellectual consequences of varying kinds of science teaching behaviors. The initial use of the system called for making judgments about small portions of teaching, arbitrarily determined from a transcript of the teaching in question. Recent work…

New trends in language teaching have resulted in a move towards research in the language classroom. A brief overview of classroom research reveals three distinct but inter-related research paradigms: classroom-centered research, classroom process research, and qualitative research, respectively.

One important challenge for researchers is to understand what happens inside classrooms that make the environment available for children's learning. This study develops the margin|centre dialectic as a general framework for describing participation of very young children in science-related activities. It employs a cultural-historical approach that…

Reports on research which examines the nature of the interaction between teachers and pupils when the Active Tutorial Work (ATW) strategy is used. Concludes that the teacher remains the center of the interaction whenever present in the learning group, despite the increased use of cooperative groupwork. Compares results with those obtained through…

This report summarizes the results of seven observation studies concerning teacher behavior, learning activities, verbal communication, the effect of teacher behavior on pupil achievement, training programs in interaction analysis, and children's interest in elementary social studies. Discussions and recommendations based on the research data are…

The Stanford Research International (SRI) classroom observation system provides a description of the classroom environment with emphasis on interactions between teachers and students and among students. Included in the SRI observation system is the Five Minute Observation (FMO), which records classroom interactions into "frames"…

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.…

The results of this study on pupil and teacher perceptions of classroom interaction indicate that: (1) there are statistically significant differences in the kind of comments made by teachers of high and low pupil gain scores; (2) individual teachers respond differently to the same lesson; and (3) pupils are attentive to different aspects of…

This article explores the use of improvisation (improv) as a lens for viewing and describing teacher-child interactions. The author describes the relationship between the principles of improv and the characteristics of responsive teaching, and how improv can be used as a lens for seeing relational activity. The author hypothesizes that improv…

This paper reviews selected findings from two traditions of educational research--process-product research and sociolinguistic research. The first research method generally focuses on the teacher and identifies teacher behaviors (processes) that correlate with student outcome measures (products). Sociolinguistic research focuses on communicative…

This study was designed to determine whether regular Head Start teachers trained as "experimenters" could produce two different teaching modes (combinations of techniques) in two consecutive sessions, using the same lesson content. Each of six Head Start teachers was asked to teach a 10-minute classification lesson to four children,…