A TREATMENT FOR THE EXPLORATION AND REFINEMENT OF AN ACTIVITY STRUCTURE TAXONOMY IN LANGUAGE ARTS.

Abstract

Historically, disciplines other than education have studied the culture of the classroom. Yet, the group phenomena of education has been ignored. The ways teachers manage groups and lesson activities appear to have important implications for the study of teaching and learning. However, there are no rules to follow. A decision-making base does not exist. Yet, the study of teacher and student behavior is dependent upon the setting within which that behavior occurs. An appropriate choice must be made for an objective method to provide an adequate level of description of the teaching/learning context of the classroom. That is the focus of this study. The subjects were nine classroom teachers, grades 1 or 2, from two separate school districts within a 50-mile radius of Tucson, Arizona. Six teachers served as the control group and three teachers served as the treatment group. Treatment consisted of orientation in the concept of activity structures, videotaping of language arts instruction, coding of such instruction by the researcher and stimulated recall of such instruction by the teacher in a feedback session with the researcher. Instrumentation consisted of a beliefs questionnaire, a teacher information form, a journal, and an interview all developed by the researcher. Instrumentation occurred with both groups, both pre- and posttreatment. Ethnographic techniques were used for both instrumentation and treatment.