Classroom Life Research Articles

Friendship Group Activities: Voices from Chinese EFL Learners

Friendship group activities, as one of the learner-centered applications of collaborative learning, promotes learners’ overall abilities and have been warmly welcomed into English as a foreign language (EFL) classes in China. However, because of the complexity of the multi-level classroom life, sometimes this application becomes problematic in the actual practice. To tackle this problem and illustrate the dynamic characteristics of collaborative language learning, further investigation into friendship groups from the students’ perspective is necessary. The present study was conducted through qualitative research with six semi-structured interviews, which aimed to elicit learners’ in-depth views on group work in the actual language classrooms and create a more suitable facilitative classroom environment for future students. The findings show that the fundamental factors, such as culture, teacher guidance and group processing have significantly impacted students’ performance and participation. This impact may have important implications for implementing collaborative language learning in future EFL contexts.

Students’ attention in class: patterns, perceptions of cause and a tool for measuring classroom quality of life

Constructs such as engagement and flow have been well developed and studied in education contexts. Sustained attention, a distinct but related concept, has been less studied, particularly in the language classroom and foreign language medium education. In a case study involving mixed methods, student attention was measured repeatedly during a university English for Academic Purposes course. The aim was to examine whether students exhibit patterns of attention in communicative language learning classes in a similar manner to lectures and to examine attention patterns based on interaction types (group work, individual work, full class). Repeated surveys were used to reveal what students perceived as detrimental to attention and the perceived value of exercise breaks. Results suggested significant changes in attention over time and between teacher talking time, group work and individual interaction types. The study design itself forms an effective tool to improve classroom life including teachers’ monitoring of class dynamics, and for students, as a means of self-reflection to increase learning performance.

Students’ attention in class: patterns, perceptions of cause and a tool for measuring classroom quality of life

Constructs such as engagement and FLOW have been well-developed and studied in education contexts. Sustained attention, a distinct but related concept, has been less studied, particularly in the language classroom and foreign language medium education. In a case study involving mixed methods, predominantly structured qualitative data, student attention was measured repeatedly during a university pre-sessional EAP course. The aim was to compare with previous research on the relationship between attention and time/stages of lessons and reveal any additional attention patterns based on interaction types (group work, individual work, full class). In addition, repeated surveys were used to reveal what students perceived as damaging to attention and also the perceived value of exercise breaks. Results suggested significance in attention changes over time and between teacher talking time, group work and individual interaction types. The study design itself forms a simple and effective tool to improve classroom life including teachers’ monitoring of class dynamics and for students, a means of self-reflection to increase learning performance.

The adventure of responsive teaching: lessons from Cora and Julie Diamond

ABSTRACT This essay has several related goals. The first is to contribute to the philosophy of education literature on Cora Diamond while introducing the work of her sister, Julie Diamond, to the field. I introduce Julie Diamond’s work by connecting it to the work of John Dewey, and a secondary goal of the paper is to test lines of connection between Dewey and Cora Diamond. Finally, by developing Cora and Julie Diamond’s thinking on teaching and the moral life, I hope to contribute to conversations in teacher education, especially ongoing conversations about the meaning of responsive teaching. The first half of the paper discusses and engages Cora Diamond’s thinking on the moral life drawing on a range of her published work, the middle of the paper builds a bridge from Cora Diamond to Dewey as a way of introducing Julie Diamond, and the final part of the paper offers an engagement with Julie Diamond’s work. I discuss teaching throughout the paper, and my hope is that a vision of responsive teaching, one grounded in the work of Julie and Cora Diamond, emerges that allows teachers to come alive to aspects of their work that can disappear in the rush and whirl of classroom life. The paper begins with a personal story as a way of connecting with the style of Cora and Julie Diamond’s approach to teaching and the moral life.

지속가능한 식생활교육을 위한 ‘식생활교실’ 플랫폼 구축

지속가능한 식생활교육을 위한 ‘식생활교실’ 플랫폼 구축

Interpretare dati, discutere e riflettere insieme: esperienze didattiche in IV e V primaria

In questo lavoro si presentano e analizzano due esperienze didattiche rivolte alle classi IV e V primaria, incentrate sull’interpretazione di dati e sulle loro rappresentazioni grafiche. Queste esperienze si inseriscono in un percorso più ampio che mira a costruire le basi per educare cittadini consapevoli, capaci di utilizzare strumenti scientifici per interpretare le informazioni a loro disposizione e di prendere, di conseguenza, decisioni fondate su basi solide.Si tratta di attività contestualizzate nella normale vita di classe dei bambini, che rendono i problemi di indagine fortemente motivanti. Mostreremo come nel contesto scelto l’interpretazione di dati consenta di avviare interessanti discussioni matematiche in cui gli studenti si confrontano, generano ipotesi esplicative e producono argomentazioni.

AN INVESTIGATION OF TEACHERS’ QUESTIONING IN THE ENGLISH READING CLASSROOMS – A CASE STUDY

Questions are a crucial part of classroom life and so questioning is one of the strongest tools at a teacher’s disposal as it engages students in the learning process and challenges levels of thinking. Many of the questions teachers ask in each lesson are concerned with the recall of textbook information. The question then is how classroom questioning strategies can become more effective; therefore, help teachers fulfill their mission of language instructions and development of students’ language competence. The study aims at exploring the questioning strategies used by teachers in the reading classes, through a case study where 3 classes of Reading (by one teacher who voluntarily joined in the study) was audio-recorded and observed. Teacher’s questions (and classroom interaction) were transcribed and categorized. Findings revealed that there are two main categories of questions, audience-oriented questions and content-oriented questions. Audience-oriented questions were found to be used three times more frequently than content-oriented questions. The triangulation of the data sources revealed that Eliciting response, Focusing information and Checking comprehension are three functions that made up the biggest percent in the seven functions of questions proposed by Chang’s (2012) through the reading activities. There is also a mapping relationship between question functions and question forms used by the teacher to facilitate her Reading classroom. The consolidations of question functions the teacher employed to support students responses proposed that the teacher attempted to involve students in the interaction and guide them to a higher level of cognitive competence.

Editor’s Introduction

Editor’s Introduction

The Editor’s Note: How will teachers manage to teach this year?

Over the years, researchers and policy makers have sought ways to combat the inefficiencies and messiness of public education, while, at the same time, researchers like Magdalane Lambert have pointed out that life in classrooms will always be messy and unpredictable. Rafael Heller notes that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought even more uncertainty and unpredictability to teaching, and the educators faced with making hard choices will need support.

A joke on precision? Revisiting \u201cprecision\u201d in the school mathematics discourse

This paper discusses the place of precision in mathematics education by exploring its role in curricular guidelines and in classroom life. By means of a joke on precision delivered by a school student in South Sweden, our study focuses on student participation in mathematical tasks that require precision in processes of measuring and reasoning. The paper uses theories on humour and inferentialism to revisit the normative place of “precision” in mathematics classroom discourse.

A robótica na escola

A tecnologia caminha para uma inserção cada vez mais marcante nos processos de ensino e aprendizagem nas escolas. Tendo em perspectiva os grandes avanços tecnológicos em nossa sociedade nos últimos anos, há uma crescente necessidade em apresentar essa tecnologia às crianças e adolescentes por intermédio da escola. Uma possibilidade de fazê-la é por meio da robótica educativa - ferramenta interdisciplinar que incentiva o aperfeiçoamento da habilidade lógico-matemática e da capacidade de resolução de problemas. Por mais que seja amplamente difundida, essa possibilidade ainda não se faz presente no cotidiano de muitos estudantes, visto que as dificuldades apresentadas nas escolas para a obtenção de recursos são várias e ultrapassam questões econômicas. Ao ponderar sobre o impacto que a robótica educativa exerce no cotidiano escolar, o presente trabalho teve como propósito o incentivo ao exercício do raciocínio lógico em alunos da rede pública de ensino do município de Casca/RS e região, por meio de um minicurso de robótica, a partir de uma sequência didática lúdica e incremental de conteúdos iniciais relativos à lógica de programação e robótica. Desse modo, atividades complementares como essa podem vir a contribuir ao exercício da perseverança, da criatividade e da inovação no cotidiano escolar e dinamizam as práticas em sala de aula, ponto que permite concluir que práticas como essa influenciam positivamente no desenvolvimento intelectual do aluno e são importantes para que a formação dos estudantes da educação básica seja complementada de maneira lúdica, objetiva e consoante com a realidade em que vivemos.

When assessment is a constant companion: students’ experiences of instruction in an era of intensified assessment focus

ABSTRACT The current study aims to deepen the knowledge of students’ experiences of teachers’ assessment related instructional actions, with particular focus on problematic consequences of an intensified assessment paradigm. Its empirical material consists of 20 focus-group interviews with a total of 102 sixteen- to eighteen-year-old students in ten Swedish municipalities. Through inductive qualitative content analysis on manifest data level, six categories of aspects emerge that together describe students’ experiences of assessment related instructional actions. Clearly, assessment, learning goals, knowledge requirements, tests, and grades are dominant elements in Swedish students’ classroom life. Consequently, they often feel strong pressure and great insecurity. For the students, it seems to make no difference whether assessment purposes are summative or formative. Rather, it appears to be the total amount of assessment related instructional actions that causes stress, and decreased desire to participate and learn in school. The results are problematized and discussed through the lens of the concepts of dilemmas and complementary attitudes. It is argued that the last decade’s intensified assessment paradigm, with its numerous macro-level reforms and decisions with bearing on summative as well as formative assessment, has led to teachers adjusting pedagogical and ethical positions in the classroom. Consequently, counterproductive practices seem to have evolved.

Children’s lived experiences of ‘ability’ in the Key Stage One classroom: life on the ‘tricky table’

ABSTRACT Within the wealth of research on ‘ability’ in education, there is a missing perspective: the perspective of the child. Whilst ‘ability’ informed practices such as ‘ability’ grouping are commonplace in the UK, how these are experienced by the young child has previously received only limited attention in research. Using case study evidence, this article demonstrates that children’s lived experiences of ‘ability’ are highly individual and shaped by a broader range of social, structural and pedagogic aspects of classroom life than previously thought. Implications are that a wide range of teaching choices can potentially affect a child’s experience of ‘ability’ and that the impact of these are particularly profound for some children, shaping their perceptions of themselves and others. Children’s perspectives therefore offer a challenge to the hegemonic discourse of ‘ability’ in education and the classroom practices upon which it is based.

Mobile Documentation: Making the Learning Process Visible to Families

AbstractThe relative ease of digitally documenting and sharing classroom life creates new challenges for teachers faced with critical decisions about what digital representations to share with families/caregivers and for what purposes. The authors explored one kindergarten teacher’s yearlong approach to using Seesaw, a digital portfolio app, to make the process of early literacy learning in the classroom more visible to families/caregivers. Ultimately, this teacher's approach to digital documentation aimed to move the conversation between school and home from what is being learned to how learning happens, offering rich invitations for families/caregivers to engage in the literacy learning process alongside their children.

Conflicting Demands of Chemistry and Inclusive Teaching—A Video-Based Case Study

Almost every country in the world is obligated to implement education policies to enable an inclusive school system. However, implementing techniques to be inclusive in schools is a major challenge to teachers, especially to those teaching a subject at secondary level and higher. Most of the literature concerning inclusive science education was published in recent years, and is more normative than empirical. Teachers struggle to transfer these normative demands to their accustomed way of teaching science. In this study, we analyze conflicts a teacher experiences when teaching a so-called ‘hard science’ like chemistry at an inclusive school. On the one hand, inclusive science education should facilitate participation in science specific learning processes for all learners. This broad perspective on inclusion demands that everyone can take part in everyday classroom life. On the other hand, chemistry strives for the understanding of abstract concepts, theories and models, which forms a barrier to learning chemistry for many people. This paper presents an explorative case study focusing on these conflicting demands. To reconstruct the inconsistencies, we analyzed a videotaped teacher–student discourse on atoms. Using the documentary method, a qualitative approach developed by the sociologist Ralf (Bohnsack et al., 2010). distinguishing between explicit and implicit knowledge, it was possible to reveal the orientational frameworks guiding the teacher’s actions. On the surface level, traditional scientific educational approaches structure the discourse. Reconstruction of the discourse is deep, as evidence was found for a participation-oriented framework as well as for the challenges the conflicting demands of chemistry and inclusive teaching put on teaching. We implicate that future professional development courses must not only concentrate on combining chemistry with inclusive pedagogies, i.e., how to teach, but also on the reflection of implicit beliefs concerning inclusive chemistry teaching.

The use of virtual simulations in teacher education to develop pre-service teachers’ behaviour and classroom management skills: implications for reflective practice

ABSTRACT Dealing with the often-overwhelming nature of the school placement experience, and the associated demands of classroom management, can be a significant challenge for many pre-service teachers. These challenges point to the need for pre-service teachers to experience aspects of challenging pupil behaviour in less pressurised environments, and where they can have the opportunities to make mistakes without fear of negative repercussions on their academic progression. The use of virtual simulations is increasingly seen as an opportunity to provide pre-service teachers with unique opportunities to experience examples of classroom life in a controlled and structured manner. With these benefits in mind, this paper explores the growing use of virtual simulations in pre-service teacher education and, in particular, their use in developing pre-service teachers’ behaviour and classroom management skills. It highlights issues that teacher educators need to be cognisant of in using them with student teachers, particularly the extent to which they cement existing stereotypes about pupil behaviour and the extent to which they subsequently limit rather than enhance opportunities for critical reflection.

The use of virtual simulations in teacher education to develop pre-service teachers’ behaviour and classroom management skills: implications for reflective practice

ABSTRACTDealing with the often-overwhelming nature of the school placement experience and the associated demands of classroom management can be a significant challenge for many pre-service teachers. These challenges point to the need for pre-service teachers to experience aspects of challenging pupil behaviour in less pressurised environments and where they can have the opportunities to make mistakes without fear of negative repercussions on their academic progression. The use of virtual simulations is increasingly seen as an opportunity to provide pre-service teachers with unique opportunities to experience examples of classroom life in a controlled and structured environment. With these benefits in mind, this paper explores the growing use of virtual simulations in pre-service teacher education and in particular their use in developing pre-service teachers’ behaviour and classroom management skills. It highlights issues that teacher educators need to be cognisant of in using them with student teachers, particularly the extent to which they cement existing stereotypes about pupil behaviour and the extent to which they subsequently limit rather than enhance opportunities for critical reflection.

Los y las diferentes en la relación educativa: Investigación narrativa con una maestra de primaria y sus criaturas

This paper comes from a qualitative research carried out in a school sponsored by a public voucher system and located in Raval, a neighborhood of the metropolitan area of Barcelona. When I developed the study, Raval was a social context where the lives and voices of its citizens were usually silenced due to the vulnerability of the people who inhabited that area. In this sense, the purpose of the inquiry was to explore how life and relationships might unfold in the daily life of a particular classroom. For a year and a half, I was alongside the teacher and a group of children who were 8 and 9 years old. Through deepening into the pedagogical goals set by the Elementary teacher, and using a hermeneutical, phenomenological, and narrative approach, the study focused on accompanying the teacher and three of the children as a way to understand how they were composing their lives. The diversity of the class spoke about their cultural and geographical differences. It was through the observation, formal and informal conversations, and participating in their class activities and games, that I discovered a world whose meanings and senses -sometimes hidden under educational standards- required a pedagogical disposition to be recognized. A disposition that the teacher pointed out in our time together and that showed me how the children can be placed, in our educational landscape, outside of what we expect or desire. This might locate them in a position where they are “different”. Thinking and analyzing the shared stories and lived experiences, allowed me to understand how the “principle of order of the just medium” (Milstein y Mendes, 1998) is still present in some school and classroom dynamics

Are Teachers’ Democratic Beliefs about Classroom Life Associated with Their Perceptions of Inclusive Education?

ABSTRACT This study reports on Greek in-service primary school teachers’ perceptions of inclusive education and the extent to which those perceptions are associated with democratic beliefs about classroom life. In addition to examining general perceptions of inclusion, this study examines the association of teachers’ democratic beliefs about classroom life with specific perceptions of inclusive education, including sentiments, attitudes, and concerns. Finally, this study investigates the extent to which teachers’ perceptions of inclusive education are associated with key demographic, professional, and personal characteristics. The sample consisted of 315 primary school teachers in Greece who completed a) the ‘Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Revised’ Scale and b) the ‘Democratic Teacher Belief Scale’. Results indicate that participants had moderately positive views about inclusive education. Teachers’ democratic beliefs about classroom life were significantly associated with their attitudes, sentiments, and concerns about inclusive education. Significant associations were found between teachers’ perceptions of inclusive education and their perceived confidence in teaching students with disabilities, training in disabilities education, and prior experience in teaching students with disabilities. The findings are discussed in relation to their implications for teachers’ training programs in countries and educational systems that are at an early stage of providing inclusive education.

Rethinking High-Leverage Practices in Justice-Oriented Ways

Justice-oriented teaching must address how classroom-based disciplinary learning is shaped by interactions among local practice and systems of privilege and oppression. Our work advances current scholarship on high-leverage practices [HLPs] by emphasizing the need for teaching practices that restructure power relations in classrooms and their intersections with historicized injustice in local practice as a part of disciplinary learning. Drawing upon a critical justice stance, and long-term collaborative work with middle school teachers and youth, we report on empirically driven insights into patterns-in-practice in teaching which yield insight into both what justice-oriented high-leverage practices may be, and the cross-cutting ideals which undergird them. We discuss the patterns-in-practice and their implications for teaching and learning across subject areas: HLPs that work toward equitable and consequential ends need to be understood in terms of the practice itself and its individual and collective impact on classroom life.