Interviews with 39 rural North Carolina students with, or at risk for, behavioral disorders found that they responded to social isolation by creating their own school subculture that reinforced their marginalization and negatively affected academic competence. Educators must consider the relationship between social interaction and learning.…

The relationships among student achievement, student culture, and educational practitioners' attitudes and expectations were investigated for 20 Mexican-American middle school students with the assistance of 12 teachers and 2 administrators. Findings indicate that these students, whether high or low achieving, perceived themselves, and were…

Describes action research on the efficacy of problem-based learning using a hermeneutic dialectic methodology. Focuses on the emergence of students' critical-thinking skills, the relevance of science concepts taught, the interdisciplinary nature of the problems addressed, and the changing roles of the teacher and students. Reports that the course…

Describes KID DESIGNER, a project that emphasizes play as a lifelong learning process by teaching elementary school students how to design their own educational computer games that embed content from subjects studied in the classroom. Topics include constructivism; cooperative learning; project-based activities; prior learning; group dynamics; and…

Examines whether the use of computers has changed the context of teachers' work in such a way that the goals of constructionism and independent learning are more attainable. Focuses on a private school in Australia where the relationships among goals, structures, and resources were integrated in support of independent learning. (MJP)

Articles present information on using the student project approach and instructional themes in early childhood settings. Articles describe particular projects, teachers and students' experiences with project learning, the Reggio Emilia approach, phases of project work, using ordinary moments during the day to support children's construction of…

A paradigm shift is occurring in the approach to teaching in the education system of American Samoa. This shift can be characterized as the movement from a traditional, teacher-centered approach to a constructivist, student-centered approach. One factor that has contributed to this shift arises from the training of teachers through the University…

This article reports the validity and use of a new form of the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES). As part of a larger study, a comparative student version (CLES-CS) was developed to evaluate the impact of an innovative teacher development program (based on the Integrated Science Learning Environment, ISLE, model) in school…

Constructivist Internet-based learning environments are advocated by contemporary educators, but few studies investigated students' preferences toward the environments for learning a specific school subject such as science. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to explore students' preferences toward constructivist…

While the concepts and principles associated with learner autonomy underpin a broad range of CALL applications and research projects, current debates and research paradigms in CALL do not provide adequate tools and models to investigate in depth the relationship between CALL and the development of learner autonomy. This paper explores the…

This article describes the application and outcomes of using a shared framework and vocabulary for understanding learning, the Let Me Learn Process, to create a relational space necessary for constructivist learning. Students in an urban leadership preparation program learned about their own and each other's unique learning patterns and…

The purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent the characteristics of constructivist learning environment existed in English Language Teaching (ELT) Methodology II courses and whether students' perception of the learning environment differed according to certain variables. The subjects of the study were 410 students taking ELT…

Literary hypertext has often been acknowledged as the embodiment of poststructuralist literary theory (e.g. Coover, 1992; Landow, 1997; Bolter, 2001). The only literary medium that is produced, edited, published and received electronically, it encourages readings that defy the conventionally linear decoding process. With respect to text…

This article reports on research into learning gains made by children aged 10-12 when they studied astronomy using learning activities in a constructivist environment consolidated by access through the Internet to a scientific-grade telescope. Young people often hold naive or alternative ideas about scientific phenomena from early childhood. Since…

Instructional immediacy is an established communication strategy that teachers can implement to create engaging learning environments. Yet, little is known about experiences distance education learners in graduate study programs have had with immediacy. This article presents findings from a qualitative research project designed to explore…