An English classroom contains both students of differing ideologies (that is, systems complete with centers that both express a desire and relieve anxiety) and teachers with their own ideologies. The potential for conflict is thus present. According to L. Althusser, however, the state provides certain apparatuses that prevent the formation of…

Staff of the Tennessee State University Class Size Project investigated effects of a 1:15 teacher/pupil ratio on first grade students' reading and mathematics achievement, behavior, attendance, and self concept. Participants were first grade pupils attending metropolitan Nashville public schools, who were assigned to an experimental group of seven…

Teacher behaviors and activities related to varying levels of student engagement and disruption were examined in 41 elementary school classrooms. Teachers and their classes were observed for eight weeks at the beginning of the school year and from January to March to determine: (1) the relationships between management behaviors and two student…

Based on emergent literacy research, two components of reading and writing--the morning message and the writing process--were developed in a laboratory school kindergarten by teacher-researcher collaboration and later disseminated to both public and private schools through a project conducted for the Kamehameha Schools, a private school in…

In writing instruction, emphasis should be placed on developing a sense of a community, focusing on the social or collaborative view of writing. This view contends that writing is taught best as collaborative learning, with the classroom providing a social context in which students come together to develop their writing skills. In the…

In order to understand why the peer editing groups of freshman collaborative writing classes often fail, an investigation of the collaborative processes of basic and experienced writers was carried out at the University of Missouri (Kansas City). Observation of two freshman composition classes (both containing basic and advanced writers) revealed…

By using public speaking skills, typical classroom problem areas can be reduced or eliminated. During the first five minutes of class, instructors can orient their audience by reviewing information from the previous class, or gain attention with an interesting story, quote, or humorous incident related to the subject matter. To avoid wasting the…

A preliminary case study used repertory grid and stimulated recall techniques to examine how teachers make sense of the impact of microcomputers on their work. Emphasis was on how teachers construe their classroom influence in relation to the actual use of microcomputers and to idealizations of their use. A version of the Kelly (1955) repgrid was…

This document reports on an inquiry into elementary school students' perceptions of important classroom rules and of the teacher's authority. Chapter 1 provides an overview to this verification inquiry, part of a larger study, Ecological Perspectives for Successful Schooling Practice. The next chapter reports on the findings on children's…

Effective schools are those that successfully impart basic computation and communication skills plus some knowledge of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. School effectiveness should be measured by looking at the total learning environment and outcomes for all students. This environment consists of three identifiable aspects--ideology,…

Classroom research procedures to help teachers to investigate their own teaching behaviors are outlined, and the benefits of such research are discussed. For undertaking investigations of teaching behaviors and their consequences, teachers are first provided with background knowledge and experience in classroom observation. A variety of techniques…

Begun in December, 1988, the Michigan Early Childhood Education Preschool (MECEP) program for high-risk 4-year-old children was serving 136 pupils by February, 1989. A process evaluation focused on cognitive, psychomotor, parent participation, education, and language development objectives and on the scheduling of class activities. The evaluation…

The first phase of a study of the effectiveness of mainstreaming of children with disabilities in the schools of New South Wales, Australia, is reported. This portion of the study involved intensive observations of small numbers of children (N=43) in all disability groups (mental, physical, sensory, emotional/behavioral, and language disabilities)…

Collaborative learning strategies can be especially effective in empowering first-year, culturally diverse students to integrate successfully into academic culture. Programs such as San Diego University's Intensive Learning Experience (ILE) link English and study skills instruction to specific general education courses, such as Cultural Geography…

The monograph provides an integrative review on the environmental and instructional factors that appear to be most conducive to the complex, interactive, and interdependent process of learning. Ten instructional strategies empirically documented to have a critical impact on a student's ability to learn are discussed in detail. They are: (1) The…