Three Australian studies identified attributes of workplaces as learning environments: authentic activities, experts, other workers, and task engagement. Limitations of workplace learning included inappropriate knowledge, lack of access to activities, expert reluctance, absence of expertise, opaque knowledge, and problems with instructional media.…

Used a constructivist teaching/learning approach to improve first year preservice primary teachers' confidence in, and attitude to, teaching science. Benefits reported were ownership of knowledge, development of pedagogic skills, and the use of group work to develop ideas. Concerns raised included uncertainty when exploring knowledge for…

Describes an instructor's experience using the constructivist approach to teach college science (ZWH)

Discusses formalizing in mathematics and provides anecdotal illustrations of formalizing in a constructivist environment, using students aged 12 and 8 involved in fraction work. (Contains 19 references.) (MKR)

Summarizes the implications of constructivism for instructional systems design in five principles that integrate the affective and cognitive domains of learning. Distinguishing characteristics of the two approaches are described based on a review of recent literature, and examples are offered that discuss learner controlled computer-based…

This paper discusses arguments for the social nature of knowledge construction, the balancing influence of individual knowledge construction, conceptualization of the relative roles of individual and social dynamics in children's learning, important principles of effective instruction, and implications for designing educational programs for…

Discusses theoretical constructs defining intertextuality as a social construction. Presents a microanalysis of a first-grade reading lesson based on recent work applying interactional sociolinguistics to classrooms. Shows how teachers and students may use intertextuality to (1) define themselves and others; (2) form social groups; and (3)…

Describes a covariational, rather than correspondence, approach to functions that emphasizes rate of change. Proposes three ways of understanding rate of change in relation to exponential functions. (Contains 41 references.) (Author/MKR)

A constructionist theory is described that accounts for the knowledge-based inferences that are constructed when readers comprehend narrative text. Distinctive assumptions of the constructionist theory embrace a principle of search (or effort) after meaning. Literature in support of the theory is reviewed. (SLD)

A study involving 42 students enrolled in a physics course was conducted to document students' epistemologies and their concurrent views about knowing and learning. Analyses revealed a spectrum of epistemological commitments commensurable with positions from objectivism to relativism. Implications to classroom environment are discussed. (ZWH)

Considers how participation in the Writing Project Summer Institute is reflected in classroom practice in the teaching of writing. Argues that the experience of learning as a construction of knowledge produces converts to such a model of learning that is reflected in the classroom. (HB)

Discusses the design debate in instructional technology among behaviorists, cognitivists, and constructivists as they design computer software programs for education. (SR)

Describes an interviewing activity that teaching methods instructors can use to help students break away from archaic, entrenched notions of teaching and learning. (PR)

Investigates whether students can use a series of self-generated analogies to bring about change in their understanding of a given scientific phenomenon and the nature of the change in the understanding. Eleven individuals in a teacher education program were audiotaped and videotaped as they attempted to understand a piston/cylinder device. (PR)

Analyzes the so-called mechanical theories of learning that underpin the transmission view of teaching that so permeates education and schooling. Promotes a neuroscientific basis for resolution of the impasse in psychological theories. Implications for the transmission-of-knowledge approach to teaching are addressed. (PR)