One way to frame science classroom discussion is to engage students in scientific argumentation, an important discourse format within science aimed at coordinating empirical evidence and scientific theory. Framing discussion as scientific argumentation gives clear priority to contributions that are sustained by evidence. We question whether this…

Meaning-making and justification are two important goals of current reforms in mathematics education. Working with learners to develop meaning-making and justification through communication and discussion in class can create dilemmas for teachers, particularly dilemmas between seemingly compatible reform goals. Drawing on previous descriptions of…

The importance of proper language, in the context of multicultural education, and how it can be of help in conflict prevention is discussed. A brief discussion of what a model does and how a scientific model is constructed is provided. A circular model is developed where it is proposed that thought, language, and action, as the three most…

This paper is based on a project investigating the use of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) as tools for children's group-based learning in primary science. A series of science activities were designed with participating teachers, in which groups of three or four children used the IWB to access information, consider options, plan actions and make…

The research reported here brings together three settings of conceptual and methodological inquiry: the sociological setting of socio-economic theory; the curricular/pedagogic setting of educational drama; and the analytic setting of ethnomethodolgically informed analyses of conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis. Students…

This paper distils 24 years of classroom research into promoting quality learning in science classrooms to develop an overall framework for better understanding and describing both the learning and the teaching approaches that stimulate and support it. For me, quality learning is characterised by adjectives such as informed, purposeful,…

The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing attention to issues of cultural and linguistic diversity, and frequently manifesting the need to work across historically constructed differences in race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This article reports on one aspect of a broader research…

What is the role of the humanities in the modern school? Should geography, history, RE and Citizenship teachers remain faithful to long-standing subject cultures and pedagogies? Or is there another way to consider how the curriculum, and the notion of individual subjects and teachers' pedagogy, could be constructed? Drawing on case studies taken…

This observational study illustrates how teachers' use of motivational utterances is expressed to pupils with learning difficulties in special education in Norwegian compulsory schooling. The term motivational utterances refers to teacher utterances that can help increase pupils' expectancy of success and task value. Video recordings were made of…

This article examines an effort to support critical literacy in an English as a foreign language (EFL) setting by analyzing one college EFL reading classroom in which students read and responded to articles from "The New Yorker". Data include transcribed audiotapes of classroom interaction and interviews with students, classroom materials, and…

Support for children with special educational needs in inclusive classrooms is increasingly provided by teaching assistants (TAs). They often have a direct pedagogical role, taking responsibility for instruction in mathematics. The quality of TAs' oral skills is crucial for learning but has rarely been researched. Using conversation analysis, this…

Though personal response "clicker" systems can enhance student engagement and learning, little research has examined characteristics which affect learning. In the current study, 151 students reported how their instructor used clickers, their experience of clicker-related hindrances, perceived benefits of using clickers, and their grades. Results…

This is a study of teaching about the human body. It is based on transcribed material from interviews with 15-year-old students and teachers about their experiences of sex education and from recordings of classroom interactions during a dissection. The analysis is focused on the relationship between what students are supposed to learn about the…

In most post-secondary Spanish language programs in the U.S., heritage language (HL) learners and second-language (L2) learners are enrolled together, in the same courses (Ingold, Rivers, Tesser, & Ashby, 2002). Nevertheless, there is scant empirical research on what actually goes on in these classrooms and what the nature of learner-learner…

In this article, I critique a component of the highly structured Open Court Reading curriculum designed to teach elementary children "inquiry and higher-order thinking" skills. The intended outcome of this component is, I argue, the production of critically literate and informed consumers of information. However, both the critical…