This case study investigated the ways in which its participants drew from available language and literacy practices as they constructed identities in various contexts. Data was gathered using ethnographic methods, including field notes, interviews, artifact collection, and video data. Observations took place within a fifth grade classroom and select focal participants were interviewed and collected video data on their own outside of school. The study was framed through theories of context-dependent identities, built from the semiotic resources available to people based on context and positionality. Findings suggest the participants engaged in multimodal, heteroglossic composing practices outside of school, while inside of school their composing practices were defined by accountability measures imposed on them from outside the classroom. Findings also showed how the classroom community was discursively built and maintained, at times functioning as a homogenizing force even though the discourses defining the community were those of acceptance and diversity. Participants cultivated what they viewed were acceptable identities within the classroom through the language and literacy norms and practices therein. The study suggests implications for educators in how language and literacy practices shape acceptable identities and the spaces for them, and for how the construct of community is understood and intended in classrooms versus how it functions in practice. / text

While social media is becoming an innovative tool in education for teacher and student use, little is known about how social media is being used in the high school band room to communicate with students, increase student-connectedness, or improve classroom community. Using Vygotsky's theory of social constructivism, Siemens's theory of connectivism, and Wenger's community of practice theory as a framework, this study explored the phenomenon of social media as used in the high school band room for communication, student-connectedness, and classroom community. Participants included 10 high school band directors located throughout the United States who shared their experiences through 1-on-1 semistructured interviews and focus group interviews. Data analysis included coding and categorizing responses from interviews and focus groups to identify themes. Results indicated social media use contributed to improved communication, increased student-connectedness, and improved classroom community in the high school band classroom, though challenges of access, cyber-bulling, and a lack of training in social media use for the classroom were also revealed as concerns by participants. These findings could impact social change by providing evidence to support appropriate use of social media in high school band programs and change teacher mindset to embrace the power of social media for communication, for student connectedness, and to improve classroom community as well as in teacher preparation programs to encourage incorporating social media as a plausible teaching tool.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to use grounded theory and case study methodology to identify and describe the ways that an upper elementary school teacher makes students feel known and respected for who they are by creating a relationship-driven classroom community. Analyzing how a teacher uses a relationship-driven classroom community has the potential to improve upon existing classroom community models. Data were collected from a teacher questionnaire, student questionnaire, samples of student work, document collection, two formal interviews with ten students, two formal interviews the teacher, and descriptive field notes from observations. Results indicated creating teacher-student relationships that make students feel known and important has the potential to offset the issues resulting from the disconnect between teachers and students and could lead to greatly improved student achievement. The results also provide new directions in the following areas: (a) teacher-student relationships, i.e., making students feel known and important; (b) creating classroom communities that are formed around teacher-student relationships; and (c) accounting for the mismatch between teachers and students.

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The purpose of this study is to explore the assumption that classrooms are the most appropriate places for the Teaching of English as a Second or Other Language (TESOL) to adult learners in contemporary global society. It considers the success of postmodern general education curricula that systematically dissolve the boundaries between the classroom and the community and seeks to show why such a place-based approach might be particularly useful in transforming TESOL curricula which for the most part overlook informal learning. This study offers 15 successful non-mother tongue English users the opportunity to reflect on their language learning in two separate open-ended interviews. Subsequently, it analyses the range and properties of the places of their acquisition as they emerge from the interview data. The study finds that the classroom is an insufficient place because its social relations necessarily limit learner agency and generally render it ineffective for ESOL acquisition. This suggests the need to transform TESOL into a practice from within which quite new places of learning with more equal social relations emerge where English language can be effectively acquired. This study recommends that English language learners and teachers collaboratively negotiate opportunities for participation in real-world English speaking communities of practice in order to acquire language rapidly and thoroughly. It suggests that this might be achieved by transforming tertiary level English classrooms into laboratories for critical reflection where students are encouraged to discuss problems of significance to them and subsequently deliver real world solutions to the local community. This exploration of place-based TESOL employs Critical Discourse Analysis as its methodology and is situated within the critical paradigm of language education research.

This is a qualitative, descriptive study of group processes in classes of adult language learners, viewed from the perspective of practising teachers. The study has an internal narrative which takes the reader through the process of the research, from the initial question raised by a casual classroom conversation to the discussion chapter which questions a number of assumptions underlying current English language teaching practices within western educational contexts. The study falls into two distinct phases. The first phase uses the constant comparative method of data collection and analysis to integrate the perceptions of 28 experienced language teachers into the following theory: teachers judge the quality of their classes in terms of the degree to which they function as cohesive groups. The second phase uses the social-psychological framework of class cohesion to explore the perceptions of eight language teachers concerning a range of everyday behaviours and events occurring within their classes. The data were gathered through classroom observations and extended weekly teacher interviews and were supplemented by information from student interviews.

This study explored changes in goal orientations throughout the semester that might be influenced by self efficacy and a sense of classroom community in hybrid courses in which course management systems (CMS) were used. A hybrid course is distinguished from a traditional face-to-face classroom in that there is an extension of the class, and students interact online in addition to face-to-face. Data were gathered from 14 hybrid courses two times during a semester, once at the beginning of the semester and once again at the end, and were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the relationships among the variables. Overall, the results indicated that each goal orientation changed throughout the semester, dynamically interacted with one another, and had unique relationship with self efficacy and sense of classroom community. More specifically, first, a sense of classroom community acted as a significant antecedent of goal orientations and mediated the relationship between pre-mastery goal orientation and post-mastery goal orientation. Second, self efficacy, another antecedent of goal orientations, mediated the relationship between pre-performance avoidance goal orientation and post-performance avoidance goal orientation. Third, post-performance approach goal orientation was influenced by sense of classroom community but not by self efficacy whereas post-performance avoidance goal orientation was influenced by self efficacy but not by sense of classroom community. Fourth, the nature of performance approach goal orientation at the beginning of the semester seemed to change throughout the semester as students gain or lose their competence and develop sense of classroom community. The results also showed that the collaborative function of the course management system most significantly contributed to the sense of classroom community in hybrid courses among four categories of functions (information delivery, external links, course materials, and collaborative function). Lastly, the study suggests ways for instructional designers and college teachers to identify and design courses that promote motivation and a sense of classroom community using various CMS functions, thereby enhancing teachers’ teaching and student learning. / text

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Student motivation is investigated in this study as a means of abrogating apathy within a public high school Jewelry course. The study is an attempt to answer a personal question of whether students could be internally motivated to a level of excitement that they would take ownership for their personal learning and the learning of their classmates. The study also addresses four main points that cause apathy, or are caused by apathy, they are: zero sum competition, compassion and support for classmates,ownership of the physical facilities, and the development of a conscientious public. Through a desire to test data on autonomy, high school students in a Jewelry 2 course were given freedom to choose what projects they made, what materials and processes they used, and what grade they received at the end of the semester. The study was a classroom action research project. Narrative analysis was used as a reflective tool to organize the data into thematic events that tracked the strengths and weaknesses of the study. Key teaching strategies were introduced in this study, including the following: personal goal setting by students to formulate an individualized curriculum; self-grading; and process diaries that the students wrote in daily to track their progress on their goals, and for use as a tool of accountability. The teaching strategies were designed to increase students' intrinsic motivation, creativity, sense of ownership for their personal learning and the learning of their fellow students, to develop a caring environment, and to develop ownership of the physical facilities of the school.