Reports on the relationship between the seating patterns of students and their observed attitudes toward class activities in an English-as-a-Second-Language class. Discusses issues of physical territoriality, psycholinguistic territoriality, and active participation by students. (CFR)

Because use of computers in second-language classrooms may tend to decrease interpersonal interaction, and therefore communication, ways to promote interaction are offered. These include small group computer projects, and suggestions are made for use with various computer functions and features: tutorials, word processing, voice recording,…

The technique of having college economics students write brief reaction papers in response to assigned readings has been found to be useful in motivating and enhancing student preparedness for classroom discussions. The reaction papers also helped students study for exams and develop writing skills. (MSE)

A college teacher can anticipate discomfort when topics such as human sexuality are in the course syllabus and can take creative steps to promote open and civil discourse. One teacher's experiences have resulted in incorporation of a sensitive-issues statement in the course syllabus, advance preparation for special events and visitors, and…

Examines how two dimensions of a community of urban science student learners--social-organizational and intellectual-thematic--evolved and influenced each other. Discusses the reasons why the teacher and student succeeded in developing a functional community but did not quite succeed in developing shared understandings in science. Contains 34…

Asserts that in school children are taught to isolate communication systems from each other, such as music, art, language, drama, and mathematics. Uses examples from the lives of two children to explore how children think about time, learning as a social process, and early literacy growth. (BGC)

Presents the results of a study where students rated audiotape excerpts of vocal instruction that featured teacher approval or disapproval behavior. Correlated this information with the students' grade level, gender, and responses to questions concerning attributes for success. Most students attributed success to internal rather than external…

Argues that one of the richest vehicles for enhancing students' classroom learning is the diversity of the student body itself. Integrating diversity into the classroom process also increases motivation and facilitates development of social, cognitive, and communication skills necessary for today's multicultural workforce. Classroom experiences,…

Discusses changes in classroom dynamics when computer technology is incorporated into the curriculum, based on experiences in elementary and secondary school science and math classes. Topics include student motivation; cooperation and collaboration; increased persistence in problem solving; different methods of assessment; increased and improved…

This chapter reports the results of research into how frequently students perceive faculty to engage in classroom improprieties and what they tend to do about it. (Contains 1 table.)

Even though social studies teachers may value discussion of controversial issues, such practice is rare in most social studies classrooms. Nystrand, Gamoran, and Carbonaro (1998) reported that 90 percent of the instruction they observed in more than one hundred middle and high school classes involved no discussion at all. What teachers cite as…

For this article, the development of 1 teacher's pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986) was tracked longitudinally across 2 years as she taught a new instructional unit in middle school mathematics. Growth in pedagogical content knowledge is characterized as the interanimation of 2 Discourses (Gee, 1999). One Discourse refers to…

This study is concerned with interactional involvement and identity construction in a university seminar comprised of native and non-native English speaking students. Findings reveal that in their classroom interactions, these two groups of students take on and perceive others to take on identities that have little to do with their language status…

This article explicates the Cultural Modeling Framework for designing robust learning environments that leverage everyday knowledge of culturally diverse students to support subject-matter-specific learning. It reports a study of Cultural Modeling in the teaching of response to literature in an urban underachieving high school serving…

This article describes a national school improvement project involving five compulsory schools for hard-of-hearing pupils, located in different parts of Sweden. Using action research, the teachers tried to change the communication patterns among the pupils by changing their own classroom practices, In this process the teachers tested and used…