In this article, the authors present parent-educator conversations, which were selected to illustrate common communication patterns and provide links to some of the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children's recommended practices for communicating and collaborating with parents. Using conversation analysis, researchers…

This article elaborates a model for understanding pedagogy in online educational forums. The model identifies four key components. Intellectual engagement describes the foreground cognitive processes of collaborative learning. Communication processes operating in the background accumulate an ever richer store of shared understandings that enable…

Explores the nature of explanations used by 20 middle school science teachers utilizing the constant comparative analysis method in analyzing transcripts of classroom discourse. Discusses a subsuming categorical framework for the 10 types of explanations generated, along with examples of each type, namely: analogical, anthropomorphic, functional,…

Kenneth Burke's concepts of identification, the five terms of dramatism, and strategic uses of ambiguity can be successfully taught to undergraduates if appropriate and familiar examples are used. Print and electronic advertising offer the instructor an up-to-date, familiar, and abundant source of classroom examples. Market segmentation models…

Advocates of computer-mediated instruction have pointed to the potential of online teaching for facilitating students' active learning behavior. Small-group online discussion can have a role in meaningful student interaction. Yet, what is less known are the conditions under which students actually engage in interaction in online discussion groups…

Observations of 90 lessons reveal the limitations of the whole-class discussion, the dominant teaching method in elementary and secondary schools. In addition to producing a low percentage of student involvement, rarely more than 50%, teachers' questions and answer techniques do not usually stimulate critical thinking. Besides most often asking…

Discusses lying by public officials and governments. Reviews history textbook research, and concludes that the content is selected and written to preserve political and economic power. Questions whether or not societies should allow children to be brought up with false beliefs about their own history. (CFR)

Noting that classroom communication is a central issue in school systems, because spoken language is the medium by which much teaching takes place, this book investigates classroom discourse within the framework of applied linguistics, and discusses research drawn from elementary, secondary and postsecondary classrooms. The first section deals…