The Impact of Virtual Office Hours on In-Class Participation
This study investigated whether there would be an increase in college student's participation in a college methods course that utilized virtual office hours. Virtual office hours involved a specific time when the professor was available for private or public questions and discussions via the Internet. Two groups of students participated in a social studies methods course where virtual office hours were made available twice a week. Laptop computers were issued fo'r the duration of the semester. Students also participated in required asynchronous discussions online. Data were collected from the course and from student interviews regarding the virtual experience. Results indicated that participating students developed a classroom culture that functioned during the virtual office which not only supported classroom discussions but also created a comfort level that augmented participation during the actual class time. Students reported that the virtual office hours had a direct impact upon class discussions. The virtual office provided students with a model of thoughtful discussions that they could then practice for themselves. With the confidence developed from this practice, students subsequently developed their own means of putting these ideas into practice. (Contains 22 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Contextualization cues in the classroom: Discourse regulation and social control functions
ABSTRACT Under certain circumstances, contextualization cues become powerful means of achieving social order. The social organization of a daily group meeting in an American primary grade classroom is closely examined. Participants recurrently generate certain contexts within the meeting in varying sequence from day to day. Transitions from one to another regularly occur smoothly and unremarkably as interaction unfolds. On some occasions, however, this does not happen. Order breaks down, and the teacher and students implicitly negotiate what the context will be. On the surface, these contrasting patterns seem to arise unpredictably as students choose either to “behave” or “misbehave.” That is how the teacher accounts for them. Nevertheless, a closer analysis shows that they are explainable with reference to some subtle contextualization cues that the teacher, without being consciously aware of it, routinely provides but occasionally omits at context boundaries. Students routinely act on the presence and absence of these cues, which thus become a tacit, jointly constructed means of discourse regulation and social control. Their inadvertant “omission” becomes a recurrent source of interactional trouble. (Context, contextualization cues, classroom discourse, ethnography of speaking)
[Effects of dance exercise on exercise intention and exercise-related affect of postmenopausal women].
PURPOSE
A dance exercise program was performed to investigate the effects of exercise on exercise intention and exercise-related affect as these are important determinants of exercise behavior.


METHOD
The subjects were overweight (23< or =BMI< or =25) or obese (BMI> or =25) postmenopausal women (n=14), who participated in an exercise program from May, 2003 through November, 2003 at one public health center located in Kyong-gi Province. Data was analyzed with an SAS PC program.


RESULT
Exercise intention was significantly increased after the exercise program (t=-2.24, P=0.04). Exercise-related affect was also increased, but there was no statistically significant change (t=1.81, P=0.09).


CONCLUSION
This study suggests that exercise participation can increase the level of future exercise behavior by increasing exercise intention and exercise-related affect.