Colleges and universities have embraced distance education as a solution to meet challenges brought by demands for access, reduced state and federal funding, and strained institutional resources. Paralleling the growth of distance educational courses, programs, and enrollments, is the need to have increasing numbers of faculty delivering…

Classroom climate, though difficult to define and assess, affects student learning especially in the elementary schools. Much of the current research focuses on the primary architect of classroom climate--the teacher. There is little doubt that teacher behaviors determine the overall climate of the classroom, but peer actions and reactions also…

Many researchers have called for a broadening of the theoretical base of language teacher development programs to include gathering information not only on what teachers do in the classroom, but also on what they know, and how this knowledge is transferred to their teaching behavior, especially as they gain more experience in the classroom.…

A study which replicated previous research focused on the perceived affiliative communication behaviors of teachers within the classroom, their relationship to student learning, and the interrelationship among those behaviors. Six hypotheses were formulated based on already published literature. These hypotheses suggest that student perceptions of…

No trend in education has been more exalted than "whole language," which has a following of teachers, researchers, and specialists who are almost fanatical in their observance of this teaching method. The debate is between two types of direct instruction: the "atomistic" approach encourages teachers to break down reading into…

This paper reports on one secondary social studies teacher's efforts to engage students in learning about self, others, and the world. Modes of presentation and learning activities are the specific focus. Observations occurred during 160 class periods in four different social studies classrooms, tenth-grade world geography, eleventh-grade U.S.…

Participants in this study of the effect of year round schools on teacher attendance included 45 elementary school teachers from a Chicago (Illinois) public school located in a predominately low socioeconomic neighborhood comprised of 98 percent Hispanic students. These teachers were part of the staff when the school was on a traditional calendar…

This study analyzed how Taiwanese kindergarten teachers evaluated events of various classroom management skills used by early childhood student teachers in group activities. The kindergarten teachers evaluated effectiveness, appropriateness, frequency of practicing similar skills themselves, and the need to modify any of the above. A questionnaire…

Research has shown that teacher involvement can stimulate and enrich children's play, with positive developmental consequences. This study examined teachers' thinking and practices in relation to the role of the teacher in children's outdoor play. Data were collected from eight preschools through teacher interviews and observations of children's…

Great theoretical debate has occurred in whether a teacher not of the same biological origin of the author of a text can do justice to the literature of another ethnic or racial group in the class. However, mainstream public university students of largely white populations feel themselves "indoctrinated" in classrooms which have the aim…

Based on a participant observation study of a full-day kindergarten in a North Carolina public school in 1994, this report argues that instructional transitions or classroom rituals act as rites of passage enabling children to disengage from their home roles, transition to school roles, and assume the moral identity of the student role. Portal…

A grounded theory study examined six high school teachers' conceptions of classroom discussion, and their purposes for using classroom discussion. Data were gathered during in-depth interviews and a think-aloud task in which teachers rank ordered five vignettes of classroom interaction. Both urban and suburban high school teachers were involved.…

Developing students' ability to use multicultural perspectives and knowledge to think about literature, history, and society is emerging as an important part of a pluralistic approach to education. Am ethnographic study examined three innovative eleventh-grade literature-history classes as they were negotiated over 2 school years by a pair of…

"Sharing the ownership of knowing" (a constructivist concept of motivation for literacy learning) is a dynamic classroom interaction in which a teacher's constructivist epistemological stance facilitates students' sense of their own construction of meaning and the integrity of their own thinking. Sharing the ownership of knowing was one…

Differentiation practices are defined by the Scottish Office Education Department as the identification of, and effective provision for, a range of abilities in one classroom, such that pupils in a particular class need not study the same things at the same pace and in the same way at all times. This issue of the "Interchange" describes…