This study examined the notion of respect in the college classroom. While pedagogical researchers had previously studied the phenomenon, each found challenges in defining it. Moreover, communication scholars do not examine respect as a primary pedagogical factor with learning implications. Focus groups provided venues for topic-specific discussion necessary for better understanding the diversity of students' worldviews regarding respect in the college classroom. Grounded theory allowed for searching theoretical relevance of the phenomenon through constant comparison with categorical identification. The most practical contributions of this research identifies as several major notions including, the importance of relationships within the process, student self-esteem, and global-classroom respect. In addition, implications emerged from the data as learning, motivation, and environment. One other practical contribution exists as a respect communication model for the college classroom. Further, examining students' worldviews of respect in the classroom provides benefits for pedagogical scholars, students, and instructors.

This study developed propositions concerning the nature of academic tasks as they are experienced in classrooms. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to analyze academic task structures in two language-arts classes, one designated as average-ability and one designated as high-ability. Few studies have concentrated on tasks as they are experienced in classrooms. While propositions concerning task systems are sparse in any curriculum area, language arts classes would seem to be particularly appropriate for supplying information about a wide range of task types. The present research thus described the nature of tasks in two junior high language arts classes.

The concept of teacher-activism is not new, but activism has generally been framed as human actions or characteristics. This study frames activist practices as non-material affective bodies, defined broadly as something with the power to affect and be affected by other bodies. This power to affect and be affected is what imbues a body with agency. Thus, activist practices are non-material bodies that have agency. The purpose of this study was to explore how the affective bodies of activist practices move across cultures, spaces, and places, and how the practices exert agency as they move. Using multisensory ethnographic methods, this study followed three teacher-activists in their classrooms and at other activist endeavors, in order to sense the effects each teacher’s activist practices had as they exerted their agential powers. Undergirded both by humanist ethnographic methods and post-humanist theories of affect that highlight the ordinary, this study acknowledges the need for the human, even as non-human bodies are the focus. Using an analytical process of rhizomatic mapping the affective forces of the activist practices, this study explored what the practices do to and for each teacher-activist. Information sources for this mapping process included ethnographic fieldnotes, observations and interviews, writing exercises, and voice memos. The findings of this study suggest that considering affects in teacher education for an activist identity may provide a more expansive definition for who constitutes a teacher-activist, spaces in which activism operates, and what actual activist practices can be. It also suggests that attention to affects may make tangible the intangibles of teaching; specifically, the ways in which students are moved by things that seem inconsequential, such as fleeting emotions, ideas, pedagogies, curricula, and classroom decorations. Methodologically, this study adds to an increasing body of empirical studies that support the notion that humanist and post-humanist methods can coexist, and that the contradictions can open, rather than foreclose, possibilities for thinking about what data can do

A study to determine whether an activity program can be carried on under adverse conditions in a first grade classroom.

The presenter will discuss challenges and implications of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) to classroom environment, behavior management and special education. The presenter will then open discussion on experiences with NAS in classrooms, schools, and communities.

This teacher research project investigates a high school English teacher’s classrooms that combine outdoor activities in nature with literacy activities, including environmental literature read through a lens of ecocriticism. It seeks to answer the overarching research question: What happens when students read environmental literature and experience outdoor activities in English classes that emphasize critical literacy focusing on environmental justice and ecocriticism? The data sets derive from students’ writing and testimony (from interviews) involving cohorts of between three and six students who participated in classroom research studies in 2011, 2012, and 2018. This teacher research project borrows from grounded theory methodologies in the processes of data collection and analysis. Findings from the data suggest that participants showed an ability to read the word and the world in ways that promoted a critical gaze toward social and environmental injustice. Also, students were able to see “what nobody ever sees” in literature and the natural world. A grounded theory of critical rambling is offered.

Academically dishonest behaviors pose a major threat to education. High rates of cheating have been reported at all levels of education, and by most accounts seem to be on the rise. Classroom environment research has demonstrated that environments created by classroom teachers have a significant impact on many aspects of education. Using a mixed methods approach, the current study investigated the relationship between cheating and the high school classroom environment. Quantitative data were collected from two surveys. The Academic Integrity Survey (AIS) asked students to self report cheating behaviors, and the Classroom Environment Scale (CES) asked students about their perceptions of the classroom environment. Qualitative data were collected from classroom observations and student interviews. The results of this study indicate that the classroom environment is significantly related to student cheating; the more positive the environment, the less students will cheat. Regression analyses indicated that 2 CES subscales, order and organization and involvement, were negatively related to student cheating and explained 40% and 23% of the variance respectively. The regression analyses also indicated that 3 other study variables, school sports participation, after school employment, and grade level were positively related to student cheating and explained 15%, 12%, and 11% of the variance, respectively. Qualitative analyses yielded 5 major findings. It was found that students cheat more in environments where students are not involved, that lack order and organization, and that lack teacher control. Students cheat more when their teachers are oblivious and are not respected, and larger systemic issues are related to student cheating behaviors. This study represents rare attempts to access the student perspective on cheating as well as to understand teachers’ role in student cheating. This study concludes that teachers can reduce the rates of cheating in their classes by improving their classroom environments, especially in the areas of order and organization and student involvement, and by increasing their use of authentic standards based assessments. However, most of these improvements will only impact students’ opportunity to cheat. Educators will have a difficult time affecting students’ desire to cheat until larger systemic problems with the current educational system are addressed.

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This research is aimed at finding the classroom environment indicators that lead young preschoolers, three and four years of age, learn civic efficacy to bring a change in the lives of others a member of the classroom community. The sample comprises of six female preschool teachers at a preschool in a University in Southern America. The data collected from; lesson plans, teachers’ portfolio notes, classroom observations, and semi structured interviews. The qualitative analysis tool, NVivo pro was used to analyze the data. For a clear picture of an obscure contextual phenomenon, charts showing emerging civic efficacy themes are added. Findings reveal that inquiry based, collaboratively orchestrated, and meaningfully engaged classrooms have significant potentials to develop civic efficacy in preschoolers. A systematic, well-thought and wisely planned, children’s life relevant, developmentally challenging activities embedded in social context significantly develop civic efficacy in children. The children hone multiple skills such as; inquiry, research, and problem-solving; collective action, reciprocity, and friendship; responsibility, independence, and community building. The limitations and implications are discussed.

Thesis (M.A.(Translation and Linguistics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2014 / This research was a case study of teachers’ conceptualizations and theories that underpin their classroom practices in a primary school in the Mankweng Township, Limpopo Province. The study sought to explore what these conceptualizations are, and what theoretical paradigms (or mix of paradigms) underpin them. However, rather than attempt to get teachers to articulate their conceptions (which may be too abstract and difficult an undertaking), teachers were required to engage with classroom practices different from their own and in the context of this engagement, confront their own beliefs about literacy and literacy development. The study also aimed to explore whether encounters by teachers with classroom practices based on sets of principles different to their own will lead them to revise their theories or principles underpinning their teaching practices. The empirical data was in the form of seven lessons by the regular teachers alongside six intervention lessons taught by the academic researchers. Key to the research design was to get teachers to critically and reflectively engage with their teaching and the teaching of others. Through the use of actual transcripts of teachers’ classroom practices and responses to the two sets of lessons as evidence, teachers’ classroom practices, actions and beliefs were made visible in this research. The data from regular lessons show a consistent yet disconcerting pattern in teachers’ classroom practices as learners were found to be writing far too little, and much of learning and teaching was predominantly oral. Teachers also seemed to lack theories of literacy teaching, and thus could not meaningfully engage their learners in academic discourse enabling them to cross the bridge between everyday knowledge and academic knowledge. Overall, the study suggests that pedagogic and content knowledge are key, in order to empower teachers with both knowledge of their disciplinary content and meaningful strategies of communicating the knowledge they have to their learners. Further current models of teacher professionalization through short training workshop do not seem to be very effective and alternative approaches need to be developed.