Drawing on data from a larger doctoral study, this paper specifically explores influences on the discourses of professionalism amongst a sample of highly engaged teachers within the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO). The study is rooted in the assumption that discourse takes shape within a highly politicized system of socialization…

Teacher-student discourse continues to be teacher-centred even though researchers and reform documents have recommended changes toward increased levels of student-centred discourse. In science education this situation is paralleled by effort to make scientific inquiry more student-centred. The purpose of this study was to investigate how discourse…

Communicating their thinking in mathematics is challenging for young children. This research studied the change in six-year old students' oral and written solution explanations before and after six problem-based mathematics lessons that focused on developing conceptual understanding of adding or subtracting a 2-digit number and a multiple of ten.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how a chemistry teacher's questions influence the classroom discourse. It presents a fine-grained analysis of the rich variety of one teacher's questions and the roles they play in an upper secondary chemistry classroom. The study identifies six different functions for the teacher's questions:…

Both the Common Core Standards for Literacy and the College, Career, and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies State Standards underscore the importance of classroom discussion for the development of high-level literacy and subject-matter knowledge. Yet, discussion remains stubbornly absent in social studies classrooms, which tend toward rote…

Scholars and journalists alike have pointed out the poor state of political discourse in contemporary American politics. Younger generations echo these concerns, reporting that they choose to avoid engaging in political discussion because it is too partisan and riddled with rhetoric to be productive. While many offer little hope that the level of…

This article is a commentary on a model for negotiation in teaching-learning dialogues (Baker 1994) that traces its origins and developments over the past 20 years. The first main section of the paper describes the research background out of which the model arose, within the "credo" of individualised tutoring of the 1980s. This is…

Teachers of writing have two options available to them when it comes to teaching paragraphing. There are, broadly speaking, either "laissez faire" approaches, or tightly prescriptivist ones. While the latter approaches have, at times, been challenged, they are entrenched in textbooks and testing rubrics, and are highly influential in…

This article details a four-faceted approach we developed to help structure discourse about topics in partisan arenas, many of which intersect with issues of equity and social justice. The article's narrative centers on challenging and emotionally charged discussions that unfolded in a classroom management class in our teacher preparation program…

Formative feedback currently receives attention as an effective means of increasing student learning. However, how to frame feedback to achieve the best effect is an ongoing debate. In this study we analyse a written data-set of 174 segments of teacher feedback and student response, coded using 10 emergent feedback and 14 response categories. As…

This paper examines how one particular class of educational leader--international school Heads--relate to managerialism. Representing a novel site of new theorisation, the independence enjoyed by these leaders allows a 'purer' view of managerialism as experienced 'in here' (inside the subject), not just as a reaction to what is 'out there' (i.e.…

This article argues that multisentence discourses give rise to Gricean quantity implicatures that go beyond the mere sum of the implicatures of the sentences they consist of. We formulate two theories of discourse-level implicature: the null theory, which only has a mechanism for sentence-level implicature and does not rely on any specific notion…

The importance of parent-child reminiscing for young children's social and cognitive development has been well established, but despite the increasing numbers of children attending formal early childhood settings such as nurseries and preschools, there has been surprisingly little research exploring educator-child reminiscing in these contexts.…

The language of science, which emphasizes reasoning about the causes and conditions of scientific phenomenon and use of visuals to convey information, can be difficult for young readers and writers without a lot of teacher scaffolding (Pappas and Varelas 2009). It is important that teachers understand these linguistic requirements to support…

Vocabulary and communication are essential components of mathematics that should be addressed in the classroom. Knowledge of mathematical vocabulary has been argued as a necessary building block for students to engage in purposeful discourse. However, previous studies primarily focus on vocabulary instruction strategies specifically for English…