This study examined two effective teaching behaviors traditionally considered by instructional communication scholars to associate positively with students' academic experiences: instructor clarity and immediacy. Our study situated these teaching behaviors in a conditional process model that integrated two key assumptions about student learning:…

Discusses the educational importance of the kinds of questions asked by teachers and reports a study indicating that teacher training procedures can improve the quality of teachers' questions so that they require cognitive functioning beyond factual recall. (DP)

Two experiments were conducted to compare the effects of two different experimentally induced orientations toward lesson objectives on teachers' instructional behaviors and the consequent achievement of their pupils. In each experiment, 36 student teachers were randomly assigned to one of two treatments. Each treatment required the teachers to…

Like any good story, the Sufi tale places the listener squarely in the midst of life; that is, precisely where learning takes place. The tale pointed out that learning can be both exhilarating and painful. In college classrooms, teachers (and their students) are spared neither of these emotions when they engage in the learning process. In this…

By keeping a diary of her class activities, the author was able to analyze her teaching behaviors and judge if they helped or hindered her goal of developing her students as independent learners. Extracts from the diary are included. (SJL)

For four- and five-year-old lower socioeconomic status children learning basic mathematics, more indirect teacher behavior and the active involvement of the student in the learning process are significantly more effective in facilitating student achievement than is a direct instruction/passive reception learning mode. (JD)

A framework is suggested for the analysis of teaching, whether for purpose of research, evaluation, or moral inquiry, that is an alternative to the present form of analysis. This form seeks in the analysis of teaching those teacher characteristics that can be established as causally reactive in producing student achievement. Differing…

Author describes a variety of innovative teaching methods designed to prompt students to learn and appreciate music. (RK)

Describes the journals of five language-minority students who were asked to write their impressions and feelings concerning teachers, class content, and the methods or techniques that their teachers used. (PRA)

The purpose of this study was to gather descriptive data for a comparative analysis of classroom and physical education teaching. A description is provided of the instrument used in collecting a wide range of data appropriate to both the classroom and the gymnasium. Four behavioral categories were observed: substantive behavior, appraisal…

Many staff development efforts are based on correcting teachers' deficiencies or weaknesses. In this staff improvement model, individual teaching styles and patterns of behavior were identified, so that they could be used in a more professional way. In determining teaching styles, it is pointed out that there is a quantitative aspect and that many…

This paper addresses the issue of how learning in classrooms takes place. The effects of different curriculum and different teaching methods in knowledge acquisition is examined, both as main effects and in interaction with student attitudes. The role of the teacher in communicating the knowledge to be acquired is described. Teachers are viewed as…

Presbyopia, a condition which affects the eye's ability to change focus or to produce a clear image, makes an appropriate analogy through which to consider educational access for special needs students. Presbyopia can be corrected with properly fitted glasses; new "glasses" should be "prescribed" for teachers so that distortions related to student…

This paper deals with the question of how teacher attitudes emerge as teacher behaviors and the relationships between teacher attitudes toward mathematics, teaching, and students, and teacher behaviors as measured by external observers and pupils. Forty-nine ninth-grade mathematics teachers were the subject of this research. It was observed that…

This paper reviews highlights of research on teaching conducted in the 1970s, discusses current trends, and considers accomplishments likely to be forthcoming in the 1980s. The latter include better attention to context in collecting classroom data and qualifying its probable generalizability, more and better measurement of progress toward…