The Dying2Learn massive open online course (MOOC) was a five-week course designed for the general community covering various topics related to death and dying, developed with a sociocultural focus that encouraged personal reflection and open discussion, rather than a medical or clinical focus. Yet, the majority of the participants identified as…

Courses: Communication Research Methods Survey; Qualitative Communication Research Methods. Objectives: It is appropriate to conduct this activity throughout a unit focused on methods of analyzing qualitative data. Implemented during two separate class periods, this activity will help students to differentiate, practice, and reflect on two types…

Learn how to foster critical conversations in English language arts classrooms. This guide encourages teachers to engage students in noticing and discussing harmful discourses about race, gender, and other identities. The authors take readers through a framework that includes knowledge about power, a critical learner stance, critical pedagogies,…

Asynchronous discussion is one of the most prevalent pedagogical strategies used in online education, yet this frequency of use has meant that its implementation has often not been supported by a robust understanding of how it should be designed and moderated to support students' learning. In particular, the literature has tended to focus on the…

Located in the suburbs of a large midwestern city, Trail Middle School serves a predominantly middle-class population. The data the authors feature in this article include group discussions and interviews with students, as well as recordings of in-class lessons, student work, and fieldnotes. The authors focus on the theme of gender as it emerged…

It is broadly admitted that social contexts of reasoning may prompt children and adolescents to improve the quality of their reasoning. However, it is not clear how this quality may be assessed when it comes to arguments expressed within oral interactions in diverse settings (whole-class or small-group discussions) by students of different ages…

This document presents the proceedings of the 29th Annual Research Forum held June 26, 2025, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included are the following eight action research papers: (1) The Influence of Cross-Curricular Pedagogy on Student Engagement in ELA Classrooms (Anna Breaugh); (2) The Influence of Guided Free…

Proof and proving play a fundamental role in mathematics education and have the potential to serve as a vehicle for developing a deeper conceptual understanding. However, engaging students in proving activities presents challenges, and mathematics teacher educators thus are responsible for supporting preservice teachers, providing opportunities to…

Online discussion had been proliferating on university campuses in U.S. higher education. Nevertheless, the quality of student postings had been a concern. Research showed that assessment played an important role in promoting the success of online discussion. This article reported a design-based research on designing, implementing, and…

Transgender persons face many barriers preventing them from accessing and receiving health care. Gender-transition care can be difficult because such care is frequently contingent upon geopolitics, such as location-based health-care policies that exclude transgender community attitudes and values. This article uses rhetorical cluster analysis to…

Mathematical Communication Skills (MCS) refer to the students' ability to (1) arrange and link their mathematical thinking through communication; (2) communicate their logical and clear mathematical thinking to their friends, teachers, and others; (3) analyze and assess mathematical thinking and strategies used by others; and (4) use mathematical…

Controversial political issues are, by definition and design, places where students engage with others holding differing opinions. Yet classrooms often reflect U.S. society, which is increasingly segregated by political ideology. This article examines the case of Jake, a young African American man who participated in a high school discussion of…

The authors develop the concept of teaching vocabulary for application (TVA) as a component of comprehensive vocabulary instruction. TVA is instruction that focuses on students' skillful application of small sets of words within academic tasks, such as text analysis and writing. The authors discuss how this instruction, with its extended focus on…

Through a dialogical exchange about disasters, we explore the notion of "knowing" by drawing on our own experience and research about improvisation and disaster management. Locating our work within our positionalities as expatriate Filipino researchers of considerable distance/closeness from each other, we find, albeit serendipitously,…

Discussion-based classes are a defining characteristic of honors curricula (National Collegiate Honors Council). Of the 177 institutions to describe their curriculum in the "Official Online Guide to Honors Colleges and Programs," 50% promote their classes as "discussion" or "discussion-based." The descriptions include…