Online discussions tend to be more effective when they are purposefully structured. In this article, we describe how the design of a photo-based protocol influenced community interactions within an online discussion in an undergraduate course. Students were asked to take and share a photo related to a course concept, respond to a peer's photo, and…

Analyses of classroom interaction have frequently spotlighted reasoned dialogue as beneficial for student learning, and research into small-group activity amongst students offers empirical support. However, the evidence relating to teacher-student interaction has never been compelling, and one of the few studies to investigate the issue directly…

Interaction is the distinctive feature of focus groups, yet little attention has been devoted to understanding techniques for enhancing the quality of interactions. We argue that using a quantitative survey instrument with focus groups has specific benefits beyond traditional open-ended topic lists or questions. We describe particular features of…

Linguists have found that certain dynamics of conversation are consistent across languages worldwide, and these dynamics can affect the classroom discussions that teachers use to assess student understanding and make instructional decisions. Carrie Holmberg and Jamaal Muwwakkil discuss how conversational pauses, for example, might lead questioners…

Foreign language documentary films offer limitless possibilities for language teaching and are an ideal medium for the integration of the target culture and for the promotion of serious and committed discussions about human rights, diversity, global issues, and sustainability. Language learning is based on current cultural contexts so that…

Talk is a key component of teaching and learning and teacher talk is an important part of how a teacher teaches. This paper discusses principles and approaches for analysing teacher talk in classroom interaction in order to investigate its effectiveness. The paper presents four reasons for analysing teacher talk: the role of interaction in the…

The online environment poses a number of challenges, including creating opportunities for students to interact and get to know each other. I propose adding online discussions that can allow students to explore the real-world implications of biochemistry to provide course context, build the classroom community, diversify student assessment, and…

Get an inside look at the discourse interactions of third- and fourth-grade students as they consider various design proposals to solve an engineering problem and negotiate a group decision. The authors present possible factors that impact student teamwork and provide recommendations for teachers to develop students' skills for group engineering…

The COVID-19 pandemic required that people make rapid changes in their lifestyles. Since the beginning of the pandemic, it was necessary for teachers and learners to adapt teaching and learning practices to a remote mode. Following this, our study seeks to contribute to the field of English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching and learning by…

Scholars use "position" to refer to the social expectations and range of available things a person can say and do in any given interaction (Harré and van Langenhove 1999; van Langenhove 2011). In the classroom, there are different social expectations for teachers and students. Teachers are often expected to give directions, present…

Research has indicated that shared book reading that is characterized by interactive classroom discussion elicits relatively complex vocabulary and, consequently, contributes to children's vocabulary acquisition (Gonzalez et al. 2014). In addition, this type of book reading has also been found to be related to building listening, comprehension,…

Interactive learning is vital to schooled learning because it encourages and enables the exploration and application of knowledge. The difficulty of providing for this learning-based interaction among students who never meet in person has been a continuing concern in online education. This paper describes six different interactive structures…

In this case, we focus on two innovations in the design of competitive discussions for a high stakes learning context. The designer created the intervention to provide learners first-hand discussion experiences despite large class sizes. It was a business communication course, and the large class sizes and group dynamics previously had inhibited…

As 100% online courses become more popular, the need for engaging student interactions through online discussions becomes more important. Unlike a traditional face-to-face course, where student-instructor and student-student interaction often naturally in the classroom, in an online class interaction needs to be consistently and deliberately…

Children's literate development is mediated by classroom talk. That same talk also mediates children's emotional, relational, self-regulatory, and moral development. Consequently, the discourse of some literacy teaching practices may be important for shaping the course of human development, and those dimensions of human development can play…