This study examined the influence of teachers' instructional moves on students' relational thinking during small-group collaborative discussions. One hundred and twenty 4th grade students and 6 teachers participated in a series of 10 discussions, generating a video-recorded corpus containing 32,511 turns for speaking. A microanalysis of a subset…

In this qualitative case study, we examine the texture of talk in the booktalks of a fifth-grade classroom where authentic classroom discussions were common. The discourse analysis of classroom transcripts yielded 13 overlapping move categories describing the talk of the teacher, and nine the talk of the students. A comparison between authentic…

Twenty-one fourth graders are actively listening and constructively critiquing mathematical statements. Each student is eagerly participating in mathematical discussions that involve multiple strategies to discover solutions. What a dramatic change since the first months of school when the same students sat as quiet as stone statues, hoping their…

Word Generation (WG) is a research-based vocabulary program for middle school students designed to teach words through language arts, math, science, and social studies classes. The program consists of weekly units that introduce 5 high-utility target words through brief passages designed to spark active examination and discussion of contemporary…

The goal of this study was to develop a classification for a range of discourse patterns that occur in text-based asynchronous discussion forums, and that can aid in the distinction of three modes of discourse: knowledge sharing, knowledge construction, and knowledge building. The dataset was taken from Knowledge Forum® databases in the Knowledge…

When Debbie Miller, educational consultant and author of "Reading with Meaning" (2013) and "Teaching with Intention" (2008) visited a Title I elementary school in Texas, the instructional reading coach was challenged in her thinking about best practices for independent reading. Ms. Miller's visit included modeling interactive…

This paper is based on research that investigated the development of probabilistic language and thinking by students 10-12 years old. The focus was on the adequate use of probabilistic terms in social practice. A series of tasks was developed for the investigation and completed by the students working in groups. The discussions were video recorded…

In this article, the authors show how groups of 2nd- and 4th-grade students in an urban school district responded to a postmodern children's book, The "Three Pigs" by David Wiesner (2001). The students came to the project from basal-based direct instruction, and here they were offered a more constructivist opportunity to engage with a…

How does teacher-guided whole-class interaction contribute to expanding students' potential for making and exchanging mathematical meanings? We address this question through an interpretative analysis of a whole-group conversation in a sixth grade class taught by an experienced teacher in a school in Southern Argentina. The extended interaction…

This manuscript focuses on fifth graders' understanding of science fiction. It is argued that it is necessary for students to understand both reading strategies and the key elements of a genre for comprehension. Students read "The Giver" within literature circles and conversation and written responses about the book were used for…

The merits of decentralized small groups has been questioned in literature and by practicing teachers; thus this study shows the academic and identity work children do as they attempt to make meaning in these spaces. This study explores the affordances and drawbacks of decentralized small group discussion contexts in a multiage (3rd/4th) grade…

Although there is a rich literature on the role of text genre and structure on students' literal comprehension, more research is needed regarding the role of these text features on students' high-level comprehension as evidenced in their small-group discussions. As such, the present study examined the effects of text genre (i.e., narrative and…

This narrative research study explores the reading responses of eight intermediate-grade girls reading global children's literature in an after-school literature circle over a five-month period. Situated in sociocultural perspectives and transactional theory in an aesthetic stance to the text, this study considers the power of critical dialogue in…

In this article, the authors illustrates techniques for integrating diverse learners in shared mathematical contexts while providing differentiated support or challenge, as necessary. The techniques described were developed for a curriculum project entitled Learning Mathematics through Representations (LMR). A premise of LMR is that students'…

A new approach to moral education using blended learning has been developed. This approach involves 10 scenarios that are designed as a web-based game and serves as a basis for group moral-consequence-based reasoning, which is developed based on a hypothetical-deductive model. The aim of the study was to examine the changes in students' blended…