Community college instructors and administrators need to understand teacher immediacy research and the role of immediacy in the multi-cultural classroom. Immediacy can be viewed as a combination of nonverbal behaviors used to accentuate a verbal message and reduce physical and psychological distance between interactants. Janis Andersen's research…

Calls for elementary teachers to reform their classroom practice in mathematics are coming from all sides. They are being asked to shift their teaching from an approach based on "transmission of knowledge" to student-centered practice. In order to assess elementary teachers' current goals and activities in teaching mathematics, a survey…

A study was conducted at Humber College of Applied Arts and Technology, in Ontario, Canada, to determine student and faculty perceptions of teacher effectiveness. Discussions with 10 nursing students identified 7 factors contributing to teacher effectiveness. A questionnaire, asking respondents to rank these seven characteristics, was distributed…

A study examined how teachers' attitudes and beliefs affect their enactment of literature-based curriculum materials, whether student attitudes differ in accordance with the teacher's orientation, and whether student achievement in reading and writing differ in whole language and traditional classrooms. Two "whole language" and two "traditional"…

Highlighting typical days in a variety of whole-language classrooms, this book describes learners of all ages, beginning with a home day-care setting through preschool programs and elementary classrooms to a junior high and high school. The book also describes a special education site and an English-as-a-Second Language classroom, and concludes in…

A fifth-grade teacher researched the experts, observed master teachers, and experimented to find out what worked best for her and her students as she made the transition from the basal to the process approach to teaching the language arts. Taking courses and meeting with others helped support her decision to change. During the process of change,…

This conference presentation describes study groups as a mechanism for changing teacher behavior. The history of study groups is discussed, beginning with the first American study groups organized by Benjamin Franklin; the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle; the waning of study groups in the early 20th century as college enrollment…

In 1990, a study was conducted of Pima Community College (PCC) associate (i.e., part-time) faculty and department heads to determine current practices and perceptions regarding the utilization of part-time faculty. Questionnaires were mailed to 1,500 faculty members and 65 department heads. Highlighted findings, based on a 51% response rate from…

The first major purpose of this paper is to show the ways in which teachers can benefit from research and the application of research findings to classroom interactions with children. The second major purpose is to examine research findings on the quality and characteristics of teachers' interactions with children by looking at findings on…

The editors of "Practical Application of Research (PAR)," a newsletter of Phi Delta Kappa's Center on Evaluation, Development, and Research, reviewed all of the research done since 1971 on the subject of instructional clarity. Instructional clarity was defined as the interaction between what a teacher does or says and the student's…

Prepared by members of the Institute for Research on Teaching and the Center for the Study of Reading, the papers in this collection examine reading comprehension as an interactive process and explore how comprehension instruction occurs in the complex workplace of the classroom. Specific topics discussed in 20 papers include the following: (1)…

Twenty years ago, anyone proposing to help teachers with the problem of classroom discipline had few resources at hand. It was approximately at that time that Jacob Kounin began a series of investigations that have changed our way of talking and thinking about classroom discipline. He changed our focus from a sterile concern with exercising…

An ethnographic study of 12 student teachers in an elementary school field-based program determined, through observation and interviews, how they reacted to the socializing process that is an integral factor in practicum experiences. Institutional and social forces that shaped these preservice teachers' behaviors and ideas were the elementary…

This paper presents a complex causal model of teacher stress based on data received from the responses of 1,466 teachers from Malmo, Sweden to a questionnaire. Also presented is a method for treating the model variables as higher-order factors or higher-order theoretical constructs. The paper's introduction presents a brief review of teacher…

In an attempt to review and, if necessary, update the curriculum, a study investigated the prevalence of problem-solving and design approaches in the teaching of woodworking courses in secondary schools in Zimbabwe. Woodworking classes in forms one and three were studied in an urban secondary school where woodworking is taught up to form four and…