Changes in the teacher's authority structure as well as changes in the content of student talk during peer response sessions occur over the course of a school year in a first-grade classroom. In the beginning of the year, the teacher, a beginner in the Teachers College Writing Project, dominated the talk during share sessions, while the students'…

This study was designed to examine the nature of the interaction among secondary school science teachers, school administrators, and external agents and how these interactions influence the character of the science program. An ethnographic approach was employed in which secondary school science classes from five schools in two districts were…

To determine what students expected their speech teachers to be like, students in introductory speech courses at two universities were asked to complete a questionnaire on the first day of class, prior to meeting their instructor. The students were told their instructor was male or female, but otherwise were given no information about the teacher.…

A design for analyzing the narrative records obtained in four studies examined the character of classroom activities and how they are managed by teachers. Focus was on controlling classroom behaviors, classroom rules, handling of disruptive or inappropriate behavior, instructional leadership, classroom organization, and student engagement.…

This booklet summarizes research observations of the last 15 years about techniques and characteristics of effective teachers. The booklet presents information to assist teachers in the classroom, to stimulate discussion, and to promote effective approaches. Effective teaching cannot always be measured, yet effective teachers have a major effect…

This paper reviews selected findings from two traditions of educational research--process-product research and sociolinguistic research. The first research method generally focuses on the teacher and identifies teacher behaviors (processes) that correlate with student outcome measures (products). Sociolinguistic research focuses on communicative…

Focusing on teaching situations with varying degrees of teacher knowledge, an interpretive study examined the effects of science teacher subject-matter knowledge on classroom questioning and other forms of discourse. Four biology and life science teachers participated in the first year of two year-long studies (the second is in progress). All of…

This collection of papers is the final product of a project designed to explore the ways in which high schools as organizations facilitate and frustrate teachers' ability to be engaged with their work. Ordinary schools were chosen as the research subjects: two in high socioeconomic (SES) settings; two in middle SES settings, and two in low SES…

All first, second, and third grade teachers in one rural southwestern school district were observed to find out (1) what they were doing while their reading groups read stories, (2) whether they changed their teaching strategies when they changed reading groups, and (3) whether their strategies during story reading changed from grade to grade.…

Research is reported on the cognitive mediational paradigm which postulates that teachers influence students' learning by causing them to think and behave in particular ways during teaching. Four studies are reported. The first describes five teachers and their students and explores, in classroom lessons, the cognitive processes students used in…

As part of a research project on teacher power in the classroom, a study examined behavior alteration techniques (BATs) and behavior representative messages (BAMs) used by elementary and secondary school teachers in classroom management. In the first phase of the study, 177 college students generated lists of BATs and BAMs, and then, working in…

Research has shown that wait-time (the amount of silence between teacher and student echances) is a part of an interdependent student-teacher interaction system and that the manipulation of this variable has measurable effects on teacher input variables, student outcome variables, and acquisition variables. Since the acquisition of extended…

This manual presents a program of instruction, the Basic Skills Instructional System, which coordinates a number of teaching strategies into a single instructional system. Section 1 describes the organizational phase of the system: (1) teacher expectation; (2) resistance from low achieving students; (3) avoiding confrontations; (4) management of…

There is an emerging research base on teacher effectiveness that should be used in redesigning teacher education programs. However, the complexity of teaching and learning does not permit simple solutions to complex problems. Several studies, projects, and programs with the goal of conducting research for teacher education programs are discussed.…

Research indicates that the quality of teacher-student communication and interaction has a significant impact on student achievement. Areas in which effective communication strategies can be used include teaching methods, classroom management, and the emotional climate of the classroom. The most effective teaching method is "direct…