This paper raises a series of questions about the nature of classroom instruction, in general, and about mathematics and reading instruction in the lower elementary school grades, in particular. It focuses on such aspects of the social organization of instruction as (1) the diversity of student populations, (2) the motivating force behind…

The psychology of emotion has been studied primarily from an intrapsychic perspective. A social psychological perspective of emotion can supplement this intrapsychic approach by examining three areas: (1) controlling the emotions of others; (2) controlling the thoughts of others through emotional expression; and (3) emotional congruence, or the…

A wide range of interesting observations of the past decade, which may now cast their shadow as the health communication paradigm of the forthcoming decade, can be clarified and correlated. One example of effective communication therapy was Norman Cousins's hospitalization with the crippling disease, "ankylosing spondylitis." Using large doses of…

A study was conducted (1) to investigate factors that influence an instructor's choice of behavior when confronted with incidents of students' poor communication performance, and (2) to demonstrate how attribution theory can be used as a vehicle for describing and understanding the causes of instructor reactions or behaviors. The study sought to…

Teaching a course entitled "Introduction to Theories of Education" requires that one practice what one is preaching. We describe an attempt to organize and provide undergraduates enrolled in an introductory course of 300+ students, with a viable, yet more collaborative and "product-based" alternative to the familiar lecture and…

In response to increased violence, bullying, and anti-social behavior among young people in our schools and on our streets (Akiba, M., LeTendre, G., Baker, D., & Goesling, B., 2002; Leming, 1996; Males, 2001; Pellegrini & Bartini, 2000; Smagorinsky, 2002; Tendero, 2000), advocates of character education have proposed and instituted a…

This paper is a practitioner response by an IT manager to a paper by Duncan Greaves entitled "A pedagogical and economic critique of student charges for Internet access", which appears in the same issue of "IJEDICT." Greaves' article proposes four mechanisms to solve this "public goods problem". The author explores…

In an effort to encourage dialogue and reflection on matters of common concern and interest, responses are invited on selected articles from other educators, who engage the text critically and offer some reflections about its utility and validity.This article offers responses from J. Christian Beretta, a principal, and Richard G. Wosman, assistant…

This paper briefly reviews studies pertaining to the imitation of facial gestures in early infancy. It is suggested that imitation provides for the initiation of a reciprocal exchange between mother and infant, but does not sustain such an interaction, since this requires a continually varied and changing pattern of gestures. Thus there is an…

A college expository writing instructor investigated how students perceive teacher intervention during the writing process and how written teacher comments affect successive drafts of student compositions. During the semester, four students were asked to react on tape to the comments the instructor wrote on the second drafts of their compositions…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference in cognitive and affective responses of eighth grade students to a short, educational film and to a videotape presentation of that film. The cognitive response involved students' understanding of such story elements of the film as plot, setting, character, mood, and theme. The affective…

Teaching styles can be considered from two approaches--the life style approach and the spectrum approach. The first is a relatively static approach borrowed from management research and organizational development. It identifies teaching styles based on Maslow's (1970) hierarchy of human needs. Teaching styles are seen as the interpersonal styles…

It has been suggested that egotistical attributions for success and failure are mediated by the affective reactions resulting from achievement outcomes. To establish the motivational impact of failure-related affect on subsequent ego-defensive attributions, an excitation transfer paradigm was used to manipulate the negative feelings elicited by…