The purpose of this study was to explore secondary school teachers' perceptions of interactive whiteboard (IWB) training workshops in Taiwan. This study also sought to identify potential problems associated with the design of IWB training workshops in order to improve their effectiveness. This research employed observations and interviews to…

The assignment for the students was to write honestly about how they felt regarding specific current events dealing with diversity. However, what resulted was a "kairos" moment for the professor--an instance that called for her best response even when she did not know what that was--when a student crossed the line in terms of respectful…

The aim of this qualitative case study is to investigate how learning in "democratic participation" is constituted by the social interaction and conversation pattern in school democratic meetings in a Swedish primary school. According to the findings, a pupil control discourse and the Initiation-Response-Evaluation pattern dominates the…

This paper explores the role of oral language and representations in negotiating mathematical understanding. The data were gathered from two Indigenous Australian classrooms in Northern Queensland. The first classroom, a Year 6/7 consisted of 15 students whose ages range from 10 years to 12 years with eight being Aboriginal, six from Torres Strait…

Yes-No (Y/N) questions are distinctive in calling for a bipolar response. Some Y/N questions predispose one answer over the other. Conversation analysts have examined the sequential relevance of this predisposition and found the institutional character of social actions enacted in Y/N questioning processes. Classroom interaction is one such…

This paper examines the turn-by-turn organization of social actions during educational activities at a multilingual preschool in Sweden. Specifically, it focuses on instructional exchanges within two commonplace activities: "sharing time" and "Spanish group". The study builds on earlier research arguing that interactional…

The present paper examines male and female teachers' language practices in relation to "censuring" talk in the primary classroom, in the context of the debate around boys' "underachievement" and the "feminisation" of primary school culture. Through an analysis of classroom observations with 51 men and women teachers, it looks to see whether gender…

Family writing projects can change the nature of classroom writing instruction and rejuvenate teachers. Marilyn McKinney, Saralyn Lasley, and Rosemary Holmes-Gull report on their study of one such project in an urban school district. Using the concept of "third space," they describe the influence of this family literacy program on…

The purposes of this study were to compare the instructional methods and strategies identified as useful in online teaching environments with those used in a face-to-face teaching environment, to investigate relationships between the perceived usefulness of instructional strategies and methods used by higher education faculty in both teaching…

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mae West would seem to have little in common, but there is one thing they both understood--the importance of body language. Educators, psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists define body language or nonverbal communication as communication without words. It includes overt behaviors such as facial expressions, eye…

As the importance of mathematics continues to grow in our society, so does the question of how to effectively teach mathematics. Although the claim that teaching does make a difference seems obvious, the question of what makes mathematics teachers effective is not easily answered. Evidence from research shows that students' mathematics learning is…

Comparisons were made of the class discussions from two graduate courses related to infants with disabilities and home visiting practice. Students were enrolled in either a traditional on-campus course that met weekly or an online course that engaged students asynchronously. Both groups of students also made weekly home visits to a family with an…

The authors describe the use of cochlear implants with deaf children in Norway and examine how this intervention has raised new expectations and some tensions concerning the future of education for deaf students. They report on two studies of communication within school learning environments of young children with implants in Norwegian preschools…

Using classroom observation and video recording methods, we performed a comparative study on the forms and content of dialogues in the classrooms between expert and novice teachers. Of the 55 lessons surveyed, it was found that expert teachers tend to use analytical and comparative questions more frequently to detect students' mathematical…

This study compared Korean students in South Korea and Korean students in the US regarding their perceptions of instructor decision authority and verbal and nonverbal immediacy. Korean students reported higher instructor decision authority and lower levels of instructor verbal and nonverbal immediacy in Korean classrooms than in US classrooms.…