Take a minute and imagine the ideal classroom learning environment. What would it be like? How would students learn? What would they be doing? Certainly, each student would be actively engaged in the lesson, exploring and discovering the key points. Perhaps students would work collaboratively, discussing various concepts and figuring out central…

Even though discourse-intensive mathematics instruction is a widely endorsed pedagogy for preservice elementary teachers, much still remains unknown about how this type of instruction affects student learning. This study investigated the relationship between talk moves that prompted preservice teachers to respond to each other's contributions…

As the proportion of children from culturally diverse backgrounds in the nation's schools increases, the teacher workforce is projected to remain overwhelmingly White, monolingual, and female. These differences are believed to have fostered a cultural mismatch, where teachers are challenged in their ability to meaningfully connect with their…

This paper presents a normative pragmatics analysis of students' use of science content in eight socioscientific group discussions about human gene therapy. The specific focus of the paper is on the argumentative role that invocations of science had in the dialectics of the discussions. The analysis suggests that science content occasionally…

To succeed academically, students must learn how to develop critical response to texts (both written texts and visual texts). Asynchronous forums provide an ideal setting for developing these response practices. This article illustrates how the author created scaffolded online forum discussions to support students in their academic literacy…

This article specifies how the setup, or introduction, of cognitively demanding tasks is a crucial phase of middle-grades mathematics instruction. The authors report on an empirical study of 165 middle-grades mathematics teachers' instruction that focused on how they introduced tasks and the relationship between how they introduced tasks and the…

Objective: Because there have been no previously published national surveys on teaching psychiatry residents about how to teach, the authors surveyed United States psychiatry program directors on what and how residents are taught about teaching. Methods: All psychiatry training programs across the United States were mailed a semistructured…

A commonly used teaching method to promote student engagement is the classroom debate. This study evaluates how affective characteristics, as defined in Bloom's taxonomy, were stimulated during debates that took place on a professional ethics module for first year computing undergraduates. The debates led to lively interactive group discussions…

Multiple states set coursework in content area literacy as a requirement for secondary teacher licensure. This paper discusses the author's Content Area Reading and Writing course at the University of Louisville, designed for secondary preservice teachers who are in a range of disciplines: secondary English, science, mathematics, foreign language,…

This paper examines the practice of online discussion in a course specially tailored for in-service teachers who are pursuing their basic degree qualification at a teacher training institute. Analyses of postings to the asynchronous electronic discussion group were made according to the type of postings as proposed by Poole (2000). Four focus…

A series of activities were undertaken to understand the underrepresentation and increase the participation of people with disabilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. These activities were funded by the Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF). They were…

This article presents a synthesis of the theoretical and research literature on facilitating asynchronous online discussions effectively. Online courses need to be designed so that they provide motivation for students to engage in productive discussions and clearly describe what is expected, perhaps in the form of a discussion rubric.…

Design Based Research (DBR) is a new and still-emerging approach to research about design, learning, and allied areas. This article reports one designer's experiences within a DBR project. Whereas most reports of DBR focus on the outcomes of the design itself, the current paper offers a hermeneutical perspective by focusing on the personal…

This discussion guide offers suggestions for conversations about sexual harassment. Its purpose is to help readers use dialogue to understand the legal definition of sexual harassment and to clarify and develop their own and others' definitions of acceptable behavior between men and women in the workplace, on campus, or wherever people gather. An…

Suggests a balance between the student-oriented writing workshop and the instructor-oriented lecture/discussion in dealing with nontraditional students. Discusses background information, assumptions about methodology in teaching writing skills, the workshop model, and the use of the peer response sheet designed to direct discussion. (EL)