This article explores four Turkish students' perceptions of participation in graduate courses at a U.S. university. Data were collected during one academic semester through in-depth interviews, a focus group interview, classroom observations, and collection of relevant documents. The findings suggest that the participants' classroom participation…

Language production of Spanish students using synchronous CMC (chat) during class time was compared with that of students meeting outside of class. The study included about 100 participants enrolled in 10 sections of a first-quarter Spanish course at a US university. Students in the control group spent 30 minutes of their weekly class time in…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of one year of regular "LEGO" training on pupils' performances in schools. The underlying pedagogical perspective is the constructivist theory, where the main idea is that knowledge is constructed in the mind of the pupil by active learning. The investigation has been made in two…

The aim of this study is to describe and to explore the main factors affecting the performance of South African pupils in the mathematics test of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat (TIMSS-R). The first objective was to describe the performance of the pupils in the mathematics test, the pupils' proficiency in English, as…

This article reports on a study of teachers in New South Wales (Australia) and their practices surrounding outcomes assessment and reporting, which took place in 2003 and 2004 as a follow-up to a major study in 1995. The study explored whether the main focus of a teacher's work involves planning, teaching, assessing, rewarding and sharing in their…

This paper adopts a social constructionist position on assessment, specifically that it can never be free of the social conditions in which it is practiced. As such, we explore two aspects of classroom interactions which contribute to and shape the learning environments in which assessment takes place. By drawing on interviews carried out with 51…

Two project researchers worked collaboratively with 10 Year 3-5 classroom teachers across nine schools in metropolitan and country regions of South Australia to answer the question: "What teaching strategies support all students to improve their numeracy outcome through the construction of meaningful understanding?". The research…

The use of fictional writing, and in particular fictional dialogue, has gained increasing credibility and popularity within the field of qualitative social science research (Clough, 2002; Denzin, 1997; Tierney, 1998) but research in early childhood education has yet to exploit such methodologies. This article asks: what is meant by the term…

This research sought to examine the communicative impact of the Black English speech pattern, known as call-response, on African Americans within an educational environment. An ethnographic study of an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) classroom was conducted to ascertain the pedagogical and cultural meanings this speech event held…

In today's societal landscape, "adoption," the legal process by which a child becomes a full and permanent member of a new family, is becoming commonplace. Even though most people have had a personal experience with adoption in some capacity, those most closely associated with adoption (birth parents, adoptees, and adoptive parents) continue to be…

This study investigates the critical thinking skills of 50 students currently enrolled in the Master's TEFL Programme at Yarmouk University, Jordan. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test, Level Z is utilised to test the students' use, or lack thereof, of the critical thinking skills of deduction, semantics, credibility, induction, definition and…

This paper draws on Matthew's story to illustrate the conflicting discourses of being a boy and being a student. Matthew is 12 years old and in Grade Six, his final year at Banrock Primary (a K-6 Australian State School). School is far from a happy place for Matthew--his tearful accounts of his combative relationships with his peers and his…

Most high school students grapple with profound questions of loss, love, and letting go; of meaning, purpose, and service; of self-reliance and community; of choice and surrender. The classroom community can profoundly influence how students respond to these questions--with love, denial, apathy, or even violence. When students work together, they…

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…

In this article, the author contends that the shift in the way public literacy instruction is talked about and enacted is not merely a semantic one designed to conceal liberal motives from the students--or at least it should not be. Rather, it aims to honor the ways that personal, private interests can construct and reconstruct the public sphere.…