Student incivilities such as challenging, dissent, and excuse making have been examined by a variety of disciplines. However, the more encompassing idea of student misbehaviors has been somewhat understudied within instructional communication. The current study inductively arrived at a set of 12 distinct college student misbehaviors identified by…

Prompt strategies have been used to increase the compliance of preschool-aged children to teacher directives. This paper describes two experiments conducted to determine if classroom teachers could learn to use the LtM prompt hierarchy and if child compliance would increase in response to teacher behavior. This study builds on the current…

In a majority of cases observed in classrooms over the last several decades, what has gone by the name "discussion" is not discussion, but rather an interaction better known as recitation. If one sees this phenomenon as a problem, then an aspect of its resolution must be theoretical (as opposed to empirical or pedagogical): What series…

Background: Integration of engineering into middle school science and mathematics classrooms is a key aspect of STEM integration. However, successful pedagogies for teachers to use engineering talk in their classrooms are not fully understood. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study aims to address this need with the research question: How does a middle…

How better can we prepare students for the roles awaiting them as citizens than by engaging them in addressing challenging issues of the day? We describe our experience as a researcher--practitioner partnership with this objective in a yearlong program involving academically low-performing urban middle schoolers and a student-centered…

This article introduces Peer Review Circles (PRC), a classroom task that fully engages learners in the peer review process. The authors had observed their undergraduate students were reluctant to do peer review and even more reluctant to use the comments received. To improve the peer review process, the authors decided to change it into a…

Mathematical reasoning requires perseverance to overcome the cognitive and affective difficulties encountered whilst pursuing a reasoned line of enquiry. The aims of the study were: to understand how children's perseverance in mathematical reasoning (PiMR) manifests in reasoning activities, and to examine how PiMR can be facilitated through a…

This study set out to assess a new instrument designed to measure the perceived frequency that teachers use fear appeals (communicated value messages that focus on avoiding failure) prior to a high-stakes examination and their appraisal as a challenge or a threat. Data were collected from two samples of students preparing for their high-stakes…

Why do some students frequently ask questions and actively seek out answers in the classroom, while others avoid this? Many language teachers might have commonly asked themselves this question. The present study is an empirical investigation of the concept of curiosity in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Using a mixed-methods…

Teachers often desire meaningful classroom discussions, but frequently shy away from introducing controversial topics. An instructional activity "Where Do You Stand?" was developed and used regularly with the goal of engaging students in discussion around politicized and divisive issues. Over 3 years of use in a secondary social studies…

Classroom talk or verbal exchanges during lesson time play a central role in students' disciplinary understanding and intellectual development. It greatly influences not only what students learn but also how they learn it. Despite this, teachers can be unaware of teacher-student talk patterns and functions; thus, what is uttered during class time…

The analysis of student questions can be used to improve the learning experience for both students and teachers. We investigated questions (N = 6457) asked before the class by first-year medicine/pharmacy students on an online platform, used by professors to prepare for Q&A sessions. Our long-term objectives are to help professors in…

The focal point of most investigations into classroom discourse tends to be on the institutionally sanctioned and legitimized on-task exchanges between teachers and students with particular attention to the I-R-F (initiation-response-follow up/feedback) structure. Liminal spaces of interaction such as during the small talk just before the 'lesson…

There's no one-size-fits-all formula for student support systems, but the relationships between the various stakeholders--everyone from classroom teachers and school librarians to families and community members--directly impact on success. So although recognizing "who" plays a part in these systems is important, we also need to focus on…

In this teacher-research study I examine factors influencing willingness to communicate (WTC) on 39 students, grades 1-6, enrolled in after-school English as a foreign language (EFL) classes in Korea. Quantitative data from student surveys, was analyzed to identify student perceptions of their comfort when engaged in various types of communicative…