This article investigates the multimodal discourses taking place in a primary school computer supported collaborative literacy environment, in which face-to-face talk in pairs is combined with computer-mediated communication. Following a socially mediated model of education, we have taken into account the collaborative process of the participants…

In this research note we explore how children construct their identity in the context of a literacy practice: developing written and audio-visual texts in small-group situation to be published on the Internet. Through their dialogue, a shared identity is growing on the context, and every children create an identity as member of a community in…

Learning communities can emerge spontaneously when people find common learning goals and pursue projects and tasks together in pursuit of those goals. "Bounded" learning communities (BLCs) are groups that form within a structured teaching or training setting, typically a course. Unlike spontaneous communities, BLCs develop in direct response to…

The use of technology in the educational setting can provide support for professional development early in a teacher's career. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study was to examine the use of an electronic discussion board in a field-based block of courses as a place where 17 preservice teachers could share experiences and ideas. The…

A group of teacher educators adopted collaborative teamwork to cope with a too large teaching load. The authors reflect on the experience of working together in a critical friendship group, highlighting the role that conversation plays in this process. The experience of a collaborative approach and its impact on teaching and professional…

The study describes the factors that render possible and restrain students' learning when they try to develop new knowledge through collaboration in a net-based learning environment. The pedagogical platform takes as its starting point a framework of socio-cultural theories of learning and is based on dialogues and collaborative situations in…

This article describes how teacher leadership emerged within schools with either a high level or a low level of readiness to establish a professional learning community. Through the perspectives of principals and teacher leaders, there were distinct differences in the emergence of teacher leadership, the operation of shared leadership structures,…

A team of faculty and students from a principal preparation program sought to discover how administrators and teachers in two culturally diverse middle schools were implementing the concept of learning community. The purposes of the study was to: (1) Explore how administrators and teachers defined learning communities; (2) Determine how the two…

Some learning scientists are beginning to investigate social and cultural aspects of learning by examining the interactions between a learner and the environment as well as with other people in the learning environment. This article proposes conversational analysis (CA) as a tool to analyze interactions between learners and instructors in…

In this article, the author examines the character of the conversations generated in an elementary teacher group as they worked on mathematical problems together and analyzed their students' work. Two distinct forms of talk--"exploratory" and "expository"--were found. The first type of talk occurred most prominently when discussions centered on…

The 15 essays in this book reveal the complexity of teaching writing, with some contributors calling into question the gap between classroom theory and classroom practice as seen through students' and tutors' perspectives. The book analyzes the cornerstone of theory and proposes a reexamination of some taken-for-granted composition practices.…

Based on the premise that portfolios form part of a process to enable the teacher more truly to become a facilitator, this report presents the narratives of an 8th-grade reading workshop teacher and a 12th-grade honors course teacher. The report begins with a brief section explaining the principles of the project. The format of the report is a…

This paper argues that classroom discussions are important sites of investigation, not for the purpose of identifying and prescribing effective discussion strategies, but for understanding why particular discursive strategies tend to dominate classroom talk and what might be done to alter such practices. The paper is grounded in feminist…

Over the past several years, education reformers have increasingly invested in the development of communities within schools as a central strategy to improve teaching and student learning. These communities come in various guises, including small schools, small learning communities, and teacher teams. Two assumptions about how these communities…

This dissertation reports the results of an intrinsic case study done at a technical community college in the southeastern United States. The purpose of the study was to understand how community college administrators and faculty members define scholarship at their institution and what methods are used within the community college to…