This paper discusses the benefits and challenges of video as a tool for supporting and enhancing peer feedback and reflection. The analysis draws on key arguments from relevant literature in combination with the author's own experiences of producing and using video recordings of peer feedback sessions, presentations and personal reflections, and…

From the field of developmental psycholinguistics and from conceptual development theory there is evidence that excessive linguistic "code-switching" in early school education may pose some hazards for the learning of young multilingual children. In this article the author addresses the issue, invoking post-Piagetian and neo-Vygotskian…

Technology offers many opportunities for educators to support teaching, learning and assessment. This paper introduces a project to design and implement a virtual environment (SAVE Science) intended to assess (not teach) middle school students' knowledge and use of scientific inquiry through two modules developed around curriculum taught in middle…

In this article we consider data arising from student-teacher-researcher interactions taking place in the context of an experimental teaching program making use of multiple modes of communication and representation to explore three-dimensional (3D) shape. As teachers/researchers attempted to support student use of a logo-like formal language for…

The aim of this study was to explore regular teachers' perceptions and experiences of supports and obstacles to communicative interactions for students with multiple and severe disabilities (MSD). Five teachers of students with MSD participated in two in-depth interviews. Interview transcripts were analysed using content analysis. Transcripts were…

The article describes action research that followed the professional development process of teacher educators engaged in the role of workshop mentors. The inquiry into their own practice and discussions about pedagogical dilemmas proved to be ways of conducting self-study during the interactive team meetings. The goal of these meetings was to…

This article describes aspects of classroom discourse, illustrated through vignettes, that reveal the complex relationship between the forms in which mathematical objects exist and their ostensive representations. We illustrate various aspects of the process through which students come to consider the reality of mathematical objects that are…

Today, teachers and administrators are continuing to recognize that learning is a social function, and that students do indeed learn better when working with others. The author agrees with this concept, but she wants to sigh deeply when she hears of one more person or company who has marketed the best approach to collaboration in the classroom. In…

Chula Vista Elementary School District, the largest in California, dramatically raised its student achievement while taking on increasing proportions of English learners by focusing on what it calls teacher talk--the way lessons are developed, delivered, and executed.

Purpose: In this study, the authors examined how variability in classroom social communication performance differed between children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) and pair-matched, typically developing peers. Method: Twelve pairs of children were observed in their classrooms, 40 min per day (20 min per child) for 4 days over a…

The aim of this study was to investigate the kinds of argumentation schemes generated by pre-service elementary science teachers (PSTs) as they perform inquiry-oriented laboratory tasks, and to explore how argumentation schemes vary by task as well as by experimentation and discussion sessions. The model of argumentative and scientific inquiry was…

"Using your profanisaurus" derives from a project, "The Production of University English", whose earliest findings were published in "Arts and Humanities in Higher Education" in 2005. By analysing "ordinary" discussions in "ordinary" English Literature classes in diverse universities, the project…

This study investigates the dynamics in the Spanish classroom between heritage language learner (HLL) dyads, second language learner (L2L) dyads, and mixed HLL-L2L dyads. Specifically, it examines oral, written and embodied discourse that informs our understanding of how learners attend to language. Analysis for this dissertation examined…

This article focuses on argumentation in mathematics classrooms in two different geographic contexts, the US and New Zealand. Drawing on data from a case with immigrant students (Pasifika) in NZ and a case with Mexican American students in the US, we argue for the need to study the concept of argumentation through a cultural and language lens. Our…

The purpose of this study was to support teachers' child-directed language and student outcomes by enhancing the educative features of an intervention targeted to vocabulary, conceptual development and comprehension. Using a set of design heuristics (Davis & Krajcik, 2005), our goal was to support teachers' professional development within the…