CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON
Dialogic Instruction and the In-Class Analysis of Classroom Discourse

CLASS 5 and How It Works (Video)

CLASS 5 is a set of algorithms use to autonomously measure and assess classroom discourse in middle- and high-school English and reading. Results can be used for teacher evaluation and professional development. Watch a short video to find out more.

CLASS Research

CLASS has been used in several large-scale empirical studies across the United States and was key to finding the first empirical support ever for the role of open-ended discussion in literature instruction:

  • C Nystrand, M., & Gamoran, A. The Stratification of Learning Opportunities in Middle and High School." National Center on Effective Secondary Schools, 1985-90
  • C Nystrand, M., & Gamoran, A. Discourse Environment and Student Achievement (the National Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools, 1990-1995
  • C Applebee, A., Langer, J., Nystrand, M., & Gamoran, A. Discussion-Based Approaches to Developing Understanding: Classroom Instruction and Student Performance in Middle and High School English, National Center on English Learning and Achievement, 1996-2001
  • C Langer, J., Applebee, A., Nystrand, M., & Gamoran, A. The Partnership for Literacy: A Study of Professional Development, Instructional Change and Student Growth. National Center on English Learning and Achievement, 1996-2001.

Articles About CLASS

Presentations

Publications

Forthcoming

  • Donnelly, P., Blanchard, N., Kelly, S., Nystrand, M., and D'Mello, S.K. (In review). Words matter: Automatic Detection of Questions in Classroom Discourse using Linguistics, Paralinguistics, and Context. Submitted to the 2017 International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK 2017). (link)
  • Donnelly, P., Blanchard, N., Samei, B., Olney, A.M., Sun, X., Ward, B., Kelly, S., Nystrand, M., and D'Mello, S. K. (In press). Multisensory Modeling of Teacher Instructional Strategies in Live Classrooms. Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2016). ACM: New York. (link)
  • Nystrand, M. (In press). 국어교육과 대화적 교수법 (Language Arts Education and Dialogue Pedagogy): 마틴 니스트랜: 상상의힘 (Sang-Sang-Eui Him), Seoul, Korea.
  • Nystrand, M. (In prep.). Classroom discourse, student achievement, and dialogic instruction.

2016

  • Blanchard, N., Donnelly, P., Olney, A., Samei, B., Ward, B., Sun, X., Nystrand, M., and D'Mello, S. (2016). Semi-Automatic Detection of Teacher Questions from Human-Transcripts of Audio in Live Classrooms. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2016) (pp. 288-291). International Educational Data Mining Society. (link)
  • Blanchard, N., Donnelly, P., Olney, A., Samei, B., Ward, B., Sun, X., Kelly, S., Nystrand, M., and D'Mello, S. (2016). Identifying Teacher Questions using Automatic Speech Recognition in Live Classrooms. Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue (SIGDIAL 2016) (pp. 191-201). Association for Computational Linguistics. (link)
  • Donnelly, P., Blanchard, N., Samei, B., Olney, A., Sun, X., Ward, B., Kelly, S., Nystrand, N., and D'Mello, S. (2016). Automatic Teacher Modeling from Live Classroom Audio. Proceedings of the 2016 ACM on International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation, & Personalization (UMAP 2016) (pp. 45-53). ACM: New York. (link)
  • Nystrand, M. & D. Woods. (2016, April). CLASS 4.50 [Computer software]. Madison: Wisconsin Center for Education Research. (link)
  • Nystrand, M. (2016). Class 4.50 User’s Manual. Madison: Wisconsin Center for Education Research. (link)

2015

  • Blanchard, N., Brady, M., Olney, A.M., Glaus, M., Sun, X., Nystrand, M., Samei, B., Kelly, S., and D'Mello, S. (2015). A Study of Automatic Speech Recognition in Noisy Classroom Environments for Automated Dialog Analysis. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2015) (pp. 23-33). C. Conati, et al., Editors. Springer-Verlag: Berlin Heidelberg. (link)
  • Blanchard, N., D'Mello, S., Nystrand, M. and Olney, A. (2015). Automatic Classification of Question & Answer Discourse Segments from Teacher's Speech in Classrooms. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2015) (pp. 282-288). C. Romero, et al., Editors. International Educational Data Mining Society. (link)
  • D'Mello, S., Olney, A, Blanchard, N., Samei, B.,Ward, B., and Kelly, S. (2015). Multimodal Capture of Teacher-Student Interactions for Automated Dialogic Analysis in Live Classrooms. Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2015) (pp. 557-566). ACM: New York. (link)
  • D’Mello, S. K., Nystrand, M., Olney, A., & Kelly, S. (December, 2015). Automating the Measurement and Assessment of Classroom Discourse. Poster presented at the 2015 Institute for Education Sciences (IES) PI Meeting. Washington, DC.
  • Samei, B., Olney, A., Kelly, S., Nystrand, M., D'Mello, S., Blanchard, N., and Graesser, A. (2015). Modeling Classroom Discourse: Do Models that Predict Dialogic Instruction Properties Generalize across Populations? Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2015) (pp. 444-447). C. Romero, et al., Editors. International Educational Data Mining Society. (link)

2014

  • Samei, B., Olney, A., Kelly, S., Nystrand, M., D'Mello, S., Blanchard, N., Sun, X., Glaus, M., and Graesser, A. (2014). Domain Independent Assessment of Dialogic Properties of Classroom Discourse. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2014) (pp. 233-236). J. Stamper, et al., Editors. International Educational Data Mining Society. (link)

Foundational Work

  • Nystrand, M. (2006, May). Research on the role of classroom discourse as it affects reading comprehension. Research in the Teaching of English, 40, 392-412. (link)
  • Nystrand, M., Wu, L., Gamoran, A., Zeiser, S., & Long, D. (2003, March-April). Questions in time: Investigating the structure and dynamics of unfolding classroom discourse. Discourse Processes, 35, 135-196. (link)
  • Nystrand, M. (1997). Opening dialogue: Understanding the dynamics of language and learning in the English classroom. (1997). New York: Teachers College Press. (link)