Classroom Life Research Articles

Beyond discovery: a case study of teacher interaction, young children and computer tasks

The integration of computer technologies into everyday classroom life continues to provide pedagogical challenges for school systems, teachers and administrators. Data from an exploratory case study of one teacher and a multiage class of children in the first years of schooling in Australia show that when young children are using computers for set tasks in small groups, they require ongoing support from teachers, and to engage in peer interactions that are meaningful and productive. Classroom organization and the nature of teacher–child talk are key factors in engaging children in set tasks and producing desirable learning and teaching outcomes.

The Relationship between Teacher and Peer Support and English-Language Learners’ Anxiety

This study sought to shed light on the relationship between support (from teachers and peers) and foreign-language learners’ anxiety. A total of 158 adult Taiwanese English-language learners completed three questionnaires: a background questionnaire, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, and the Classroom Life Measure. The results showed that teacher academic support was the most pervasive variable correlated with language-learning anxiety, compared to other types of support (i.e., teacher personal support, student academic support, and student personal support). Language learners felt less anxious when they perceived that they obtained more academic support from their teachers.

Hope in the Unexpected: How Can Teachers Still Make a Difference in the World?

Background/Context The central role of hope in teaching has long been acknowledged by authors such as Sonia Nieto and Larry Cuban, but hope has received little focused attention from scholars. This article seeks to compare multiple understandings of hope to examine how teachers can find hope in times of global crises that challenge the promise of a better future that is implicit in modern schooling. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study How can teachers find hope in hard times, when the usual promise of schools for a better future seems difficult to sustain? Research Design This article is an analytic essay. Conclusions/Recommendations This article concludes that while the long-dominant understandings of hope are inadequate for many teachers at times like these, Arendt's view of the hope that emerges in the unexpected occurrences of classroom life resonates strongly with the most rewarding and hopeful experiences of many teachers. Yet Arendt explains how the hope that teachers experience from these unpredictable and unexpected occurrences is not just a source of immediate reward, but rather contributes to political and social change. The article concludes with an account of Arendt's critique of historians’ narratives of social change and an affirmation of the impact that teachers can have as agents of change.

Review: <em>Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity</em> by Marc Lamont Hill

Review: <em>Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity</em> by Marc Lamont Hill

A Scientific Exploration of Positive Psychology in Adolescence: The Role of Hope as a Buffer against the Influences of Psychosocial Negativities

ABSTRACT Interactions between classroom climate, dispositional optimism, and hope were examined in the prediction of emotional well-being in early adolescent students. The present study consisted of 98 students (32 male, 65 female, 1 unknown) in grades six, seven, and eight with a mean age of 12.51 years (SD = .95). Participants completed questionnaires regarding their classroom environment, future expectations, hopeful thinking, depression, and life satisfaction. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed numerous interactions between classroom climate/dispositional optimism and hope in the prediction of depression and life satisfaction. Implications of these interactions are discussed in terms of hope as a psychological strength and its role in promoting emotional well-being in early adolescent students.

Beats, rhymes, and classroom life: hip-hop pedagogy and the politics of identity

Beats, rhymes, and classroom life: hip-hop pedagogy and the politics of identity

Call for Manuscripts: From the Classroom

Elementary school teachers have firsthand knowledge of the serious intellectual, social, and emotional dimensions of day-to-day classroom life. Dedicated to sharing such teacher knowledge that is generated and used in classroom settings, TCM's 'from the classroom' department is a forum for reflective, classroom-centered articles focused on issues that arise in teaching mathematics and actions that teachers take in response to those issues. Manuscripts do not necessarily resolve teachers' daily instructional challenges; instead, they can provoke discussion, encourage others to contemplate the issues at hand, and relate stories of efforts to find solutions.

Only those who See Take off Their Shoes: Seeing the Classroom as a Spiritual Space

Background/Context Spirituality refers to a way of being that includes the capacity of humans to see beyond themselves, to become more than they are, to see mystery and wonder in the world around them, and to experience private and collective moments of awe, wonder, and transcendence. Though there is growing interest in spirituality and education, there is little evidence that it is intentionally included in most public school classrooms. Purpose and Focus The author's personal experiences as a classroom teacher, adult early recollections of spiritual experience, and children's responses to literature with spiritual themes are used to illustrate three points: (1) Although practice of spiritual discipline may help teachers to be more sensitive to spiritual experiences, it does not necessarily follow that they know what to do with them in the classroom. (2) Early recollections of spiritual experiences and reflection on what these mean for classroom practice may be a way of helping teachers learn how to identify and support spirituality in the classroom. (3) Teachers need to recognize that children's spirituality is part of their being in the world, and honoring it in the classroom requires providing opportunities for its expression within the ordinary events of classroom life. Research Design The article is an essay, juxtaposing literature on children's spirituality with the author's personal experiences as a classroom teacher and researcher to make an argument for classrooms as spiritual spaces. Conclusions The possibilities inherent in discovering and coming to know—possibilities that are hopeful and open us up to the “more-than-ness” of being human—are often closed off in the day-to-day press of classroom life because teachers are not prepared to consider them, and they are not considered part of the curriculum. The author concludes that educators need to learn how to see the spirituality inherent in the everyday acts of learning, in coming to know, and in being in the classroom and to make space for the unseen. Further research is needed to articulate both theory and practice related to children's spirituality in the classroom.

It was a challenge but we did it! Digital worlds in a primary classroom

AbstractIn this article I explore one day in the life of a primary classroom in which teacher and children are playful social insiders in digital worlds. I argue that this snapshot offers glimmers of unimagined ways forward in teaching in digital worlds. The classroom culture is one of challenge, collective intelligence and reflection. The teacher's own history of participation is significant. She is a reflective teacher educator, children's literature is central to her teaching and her journey into digital worlds is playful social.

Being kitties in a preschool classroom: maintaining group harmony and acting proper in a female peer-culture play routine

This study examines how young girls construct emotional themes in their peer-culture play routines and rituals in the daily life of a preschool classroom. This research is part of a larger eight-month ethnographic study of one preschool classroom. The data selected and analysed in this article are taken from a focused six-week theoretical sampling of five female preschool children's play. Micro-level analysis of the data (field notes, videotaping, video revisiting and interviews with teachers and students) revealed how children's peer-culture and emotional themes were socially constructed through a specific play narrative that centred on five females being ‘kitties’. A closer look at one group member named Mary uncovered emotional themes that centred on acting proper and group harmony. Females used their peer-culture and emotional themes to hold group members accountable, resolve conflict and appropriate society's emotional display rules. These data reveal the social–emotional ‘work’ of children and the role of peers in childhood socialisation.

The Distinguished Visitor

Abstract This article encourages schools to invite an outside visitor who can provide a common experience for faculty, administration, students, and parents. Through objective observation, the visitor can provide thought‐provoking and inspirational feedback on the life of the school. School visitors have affected my classroom life and the daily life of the Francis W. Parker School for decades. They have provided periods of enriched thinking, reevaluation, and thoughtful change.

TRANSLATION: AN ALTERNATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR CONCEPTUALIZING AND SUPPORTING SCHOOL REFORM EFFORTS

Abstract Alison Cook‐Sather begins this review essay with a discussion of David Tyack and Larry Cuban’s generative phrase “the grammar of schooling” to provide context for her examination of three texts that address the challenges of school reform: John Sylvester Lofty’s Quiet Wisdom: Teachers in the United States and England Talk About Standards, Practice, and Professionalism; Karen Hammerness’s Seeing Through Teachers’ Eyes: Professional Ideals and Classroom Practices; and Mary Kennedy’s Inside Teaching: How Classroom Life Undermines Reform. The “grammar of schooling” metaphor, according to Cook‐Sather, captures what seems most fundamental and intractable about schools. Drawing on the texts under review as well as her own previous work on student voice and translation, Cook‐Sather explores how bringing students into dialogue with teachers and other stakeholders might support us in translating — in the more nuanced senses of the term — the established grammar of schooling into a more flexible, responsive, and variously informed set of structures and practices that would constitute a humane educational system.

A Teacher Educator Writes and Shares

A literature review reveals limited information regarding the modeling of authentic writing practices by teacher educators for their students. This study examines the effect of the author's modeling processes as evidenced by education students' assessments of his courses. The author analyzed data using a grounded approach to document their perceptions of the benefits of his in-class writing and sharing of literacy work. Responses revealed perceptions of five primary benefits, underscoring both academic and affective components. Perceived academic benefits included the learning of skills, strategies, and methods that influence a teacher's ability to address intellectual or technical aspects of classroom life. Perceived affective benefits included the enhancement of student motivation and the creation of a respectful, caring, and trustworthy learning community. Together, responses appeared to set the stage for the establishment of a more complex, multifaceted classroom discourse.

‘Teacher only calls her pets’: teacher's selective attention and the invisible life of a diverse classroom in Ghana

Studies on classroom practices in Africa and the developing world tend to report on the visible general features, i.e. code switching, rote learning, memorisation and safe talk, with very little on the micro, invisible, classroom life. This article, based on the findings of a study involving classroom observations of teachers and pupils' interactions around texts, interviews and focus-group discussions with teachers and pupils, considers ways in which certain classroom practices, such as teacher's selective attention to pupils, teacher remarks and comments, corporal punishment, power play among pupils and other classroom norms, help create inequality and cumulatively contribute to communication failure and underachievement in a diverse urban primary classroom in Ghana. The article discusses the wider implications of the findings from a socio-critical language and literacy-learning perspective and makes suggestions for improving teacher quality and effective use of textbooks and other resources.

Authoritative Classroom Management: How Control and Nurturance Work Together

Despite broad recognition that teaching excellence requires meeting students' intellectual and social needs, teachers struggle to manage—and learning theory struggles to explain—the interplay between the academic and social dimensions of classroom life. Drawing from research on parenting and child development, the author offers parenting style theory as an explanatory framework. The author begins by describing the two primary dimensions of parenting style (control and nurturance) and the influence of various styles on children's learning and development. The author then discusses the two primary channels whereby style functions, using case studies of three classrooms to illustrate how control and nurturance interact to influence student engagement and learning. Finally, the author argues that because this theory is intuitive, robust, and comprehensive, it is an important vehicle for advancing understanding of teacher influence on student outcomes and school improvement efforts.

Using inclusion, high demands and high expectations to resist the deficit syndrome: a study of eight Grade three classes overachieving in reading

AbstractThe main objective of this study was to explore how teachers and classroom factors contribute to students' successful literacy learning. Eight Grade three classes, achieving at higher levels than expected with regard to socio‐economic background and language factors, were identified in a multicultural Stockholm district and statistically described. In‐depth interviews were performed to add the teachers' voices in order to get fuller descriptions of classroom life about literature‐based work and the creation of an inclusive classroom climate. The teachers' narratives illustrate how resistance to the deficit syndrome and avoidance of colour blindness were enacted in the classrooms and contributed to create positive conditions for literacy learning. The results indicated inclusion, high demands and high expectations as key concepts depicting these classrooms. The findings are discussed in relation to Vygotsky's theories, Bernstein's code theory, and critical language theory.

Beyond the Game: Quest Atlantis as an Online Learning Experience for Gifted Elementary Students

Quest Atlantis (QA) is a learning and teaching project that uses a 3D virtual environment to immerse children, ages 8-15, in educational tasks. It allows users to travel to virtual places to perform educational activities known as Quests. The core elements of QA are: 1) a 3D multi-user virtual environment (MUVE), 2) inquiry learning Quests and unit plans, 3) a storyline involving a mythical Council and a set of social commitments, and 4) a globally-distributed community of participants (Barab, Arici, & Jackson, 2005). These inherently engaging environments are natural motivators for this age-level student, who can be considered members of the Club Penguin generation. To determine the perspectives of the users, themselves, a survey was conducted with a group of 35 gifted elementary students. The results, gathered through both closed and open-ended questions, identified the strengths and limitations of this media as a viable pedagogy for teaching more traditional content area subjects. Teacher observations of student behavior both in the real life classroom and in the online environment present additional insights how digital natives engage in and interact with this media. Implications for using virtual worlds such as Quest Atlantis for distance learning of upper elementary students are proposed.

Introduction: Classroom Life in the Age of Accountability

"For this Occasional Paper, we invited teachers to respond to the ways in which proliferation of standards and testing combined with their own loss of professional control is altering the landscape of American education....Our goal is to raise questions about whether and how educators are balancing the demands of high stakes testing, scripted curricula, and a focus on performance outcomes with the emotional complexity of classroom life."--The editors

How do teachers view their own pedagogical authority?

Authority, a fundamental part of the teaching–studying–learning process, is a problematic and poorly understood component of classroom life. It can be said, in practical terms, that pedagogical authority is constructed in classrooms, in teacher–student interaction and in the spirit of their physical presence, confidence, appreciation, responsibility and respect, and in the way they both relate to the content and norms. Based on the German Didaktik tradition and classroom interaction, an approach for the analysis of pedagogical authority is proposed providing an analytical tool for examining and understanding its constitutive elements and explaining its construction. It posits the existence of three types of interaction or relation from which pedagogical authority emanates: pedagogical interaction, deontic interaction and didactic interaction. Depending on how these relations are enacted in the classroom, they, in turn, may evolve into pedagogical authority. Data collected from four teachers’ interviews in Finnish comprehensive schools are analysed and some empirical evidence is provided to show the characteristics of these relations and how they construct this positive view of authority. More research on pedagogical authority resulting from these relations in classroom settings is needed to account for this critical educational phenomenon.

Wicked Problems and Other Thoughts on Issues of Technology and Teacher Learning

This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us. An internal Western Union memo, 1876 I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. IBM chairman Thomas Watson, 1943. There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. Ken Olson, founder, chairman and president of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke (1963), English physicist and science fiction writer, p. We've come a long way and at an incredible pace. What was magic less than a generation ago is now part of everyday life. Digital technologies are changing the way we live, work, and learn. Their potential to transform K-12 education motivated our decision to devote a theme issue of Journal of Teacher Education to the innovative uses of technology for teacher learning. (1) Although optimistic about the possibilities new technologies offer to support K-12 learners' achievement, teachers' productivity, effectiveness in classrooms, and teacher learning, we also recognize that teaching and learning with new technologies represents a problem (Koehler & Mishra, 2008). Rittel and Webber (1973) characterized wicked problems as problems that include a large number of complex variables--all of which are dynamic, contextually bound, and interdependent. The rapid growth of digital technologies, coupled with the complexity of classroom life, increases both the potential transformative power and the difficulty of problems associated with incorporating innovative technologies in teaching and teacher education. Our aim in organizing this theme issue was to explore these possibilities and complexities. Our call for this issue invited research manuscripts that address how these technologies inform teacher candidates' understanding of real classrooms and veteran teachers' professional development ... that examine the unique opportunities and obstacles presented through these inventive uses of technology, or that provide evidence for their impact on teachers' learning and practice. Perhaps it is not surprising that our understanding of what it takes to integrate technology effectively into teaching and teacher education has grown through the process of putting together the theme issue. We now have a sharper sense of the relationship between issues involved in using technology to support teacher learning and those that must be addressed to support the uses of technology to foster K-12 student learning. In the big picture, innovative teacher educators are creating technology-rich approaches that promote the development of tech-savvy teachers--teachers who regularly use digital technologies to guide their own learning, recognize the pedagogical potential of technology to help children and youth understand content, and know how to embed new technologies in their instructional practices. We recognize that the call for this theme issue did not invite articles examining how teachers learn to embed technology in their classroom practice to teach content in powerful ways. The six articles in this issue tackle the role that new technologies--particularly video and online communities--play in learning to teach. Taken together, they examine the promise digital technologies hold to help teacher educators overcome persistent dilemmas encountered when designing scalable, sustainable programs to support teacher learning. The different approaches described in the articles illustrate why developing tech-savvy teachers is a problem and why teacher education must be involved in understanding and managing the dilemmas associated with integrating technology into teacher education and K-12 classrooms. In the remainder of this editorial, we contextualize the issue's articles. We consider pedagogical affordances and constraints of digital technologies, uses of digital technology in teacher education and professional development, and the conceptualization of a new form of teacher knowledge related to integrating technology-technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK; Mishra & Koehler, 2006). …