Community In The Classroom

This action research case study describes the collaboration of five third-grade teachers and a special educator to create a grade block system of support for all students to encourage learning and to meet school-wide and classroom expectations. Three goals guided the development of this integrated system: to create an inclusive caring classroom community, to provide positive behavioral support to all students, and to integrate strong ties and values of the local Native American culture. This article describes classroom and community activities, including class meetings and service learning projects. A case study of Steven, a classmate with Emotional- Behavioral Disorders (EBD) who needed intensive support, is presented. After a functional behavior analysis was conducted, individualized strategies were developed and implemented based on his needs. These included modifying assignments and encouraging peer compliments and positive attention. Results of an AB research design indicated a substantial drop in Steven’s disruptive behavior after the implementation of these individualized interventions. Recommendations for practitioners based on the integrated classroom system are presented.

This film tells the story of how Seaton Secondary School in Vernon, British Columbia restructured the transitional year of secondary school to better retain and engage their diverse learners. Educators and students discuss co-teaching, inquiry learning, social-emotional learning, interdisciplinarity and working with BC's revised competency- and big idea-oriented curriculum.

Language brings a classroom to life and crafts the teaching and learning space.  Sociocultural theories of language acquisition and learning focus on the role of language as a mediator for development.  While research on languaging and translanguaging practices in English medium and multilingual classrooms is on the rise, less attention has been paid to the languaging work occurring in the translanguaging space of the dual language immersion classroom.  To this end, this study explores the languaging choices of a second grade French immersion teacher as he imparts both language learning objectives and his enactment of critical peace education.  This article provides a micro-discourse perspective of the speech genres utilized within a single lesson on adjectives conducted in both French and English.  Data analysis revealed the ways in which students and their teacher together languaged academic French and peace education in and through different speech genres.  This study demonstrates the affordances of a speech genre analysis for researching multilingualism in dual language learning settings.  Implications for pedagogy and theory about bi/multilingual discourse are discussed.