To investigate the current status of group time in early childhood centers, a small-scale exploratory study was designed and executed. Results of interviews with 35 teachers and observations in five classrooms serving children ages 2 1/2 through kindergarten revealed that all classrooms had at least one group time or circle time, usually in the…

The paper summarizes a study of the educational environments of profoundly handicapped pupils enrolled in special education classes relative to the types of learning experiences, social opportunities, and services provided by three teachers in the San Diego, California, school district. The teachers were all in their first year working with the…

During the first phase of a three-phase study of teaching basic reading skills in the secondary schools, 43 secondary-school reading classrooms were observed for three days, and the relationships between teaching processes and students' gains in reading were examined. Data were recorded with the Secondary Observation Instrument, and the Classroom…

This study compared the results of four different methods of observing teacher training. In addition, it used the results to identify those training techniques which seemed to be better at changing teachers' behavior in their classrooms. Twenty-nine teachers were trained by five trainers in five weekly training sessions, which were tape recorded.…

Teachers' uses of and concerns with various assessment procedures were surveyed in the Parkrose School District, Portland, Oregon. All 229 district teachers and student service staff were asked to complete a questionnaire. A total of 211 questionnaires was returned for a response rate of 92%; however, all but one of the analyses were based on the…

This manual was developed to provide a model for evaluating programs for handicapped preschoolers that can be used by all Maryland school districts regardless of size or resources. The model has five components: (1) how children are identified as handicapped; (2) what type of testing takes place before and after a child is placed in a program; (3)…

A case study of a teacher as a naturalistic inquirer is presented. A class in naturalistic inquiry methods was offered to practicing teachers and other graduate students during a 15-week semester. During the first two or three weeks, students read extensively about qualitative methods and identified a possible site to conduct a study. The…

A commonly held belief about reading instruction in the elementary grades is that students must first learn to read so that they will then utilize their reading skill to learn from written language and to acquire new ideas. Consequently most of the instructional time in the primary grades is spent in teaching students how to recognize words and…

This paper discusses findings of ecological studies of classroom learning drawn from the fields of anthropology, sociology, and ecological psychology. The aim of the studies is to illustrate the processes of teaching and learning rather than to establish generalizable rules for instruction by challenging the methodology and findings of traditional…

Basic issues concerning interpretive research, and theories and methods of using interpretive research to study teaching are discussed. The concept of interpretive research may also be known as ethnographic, qualitative, participant observational, case study, symbolic interactionist, phenomenological, or constructivist. Interpretive research…

The focus of the present study is to examine the communication strategies used by learners and teachers in the foreign language classroom. The data is from introductory Spanish classrooms at the university level. The author analyzed the data for instances of communications strategies according to taxonomy developed for ESL studies. Important…

In a study to evaluate an approach for improving the critical thinking skills of middle school science students, 60 students were given the assignment of completing three guided laboratory activities and writing a report for each. In writing their reports, students were expected to identify the manipulated variable, identify the responding…

As a botanist uses specific, non-judgmental descriptions that are part of a conceptual framework to help see different varieties and characteristics of plants, so teachers can see more clearly what they do if they describe rather than judge what is done. If the purpose of using a framework or model to discuss lesson presentations and classroom…

In the "Learning and Teaching" course at the University of Waikato (New Zealand) College of Teacher Education, explorations are being conducted into the advantages of training student teachers to work, on a more genuinely collegial basis, with the college's cooperating teachers. The assumptions and objectives of the course focus on…

This module is designed to aid preservice teachers in their first student teaching experience. The module is composed of five learning experiences which enable participants to assess their feelings toward teaching by focusing on three module components: (1) getting to know the students; (2) analyzing the role and activities of a teacher; and (3)…