What is the role of schools, and more specifically school leadership, in the transition to a sustainable future for humankind? What different forms of leadership are needed to enable this role? The challenges are huge and complex and for those of us engaged in promoting sustainability learning, it is clear that the issue has never been more…

Against the background of the Deweyan tradition of "Democracy and Education," we discuss problems of complexity and reductionism in education and educational philosophy. First, we investigate some of Dewey's own criticisms of reductionist tendencies in the educational traditions, theories, and practices of his time. Secondly, we explore…

The paper contrasts two different approaches to the educational challenges of the ubiquitous, rapidly developing information and communication technologies (ICT). The first is the constructivist "knowledge building" theory spearheaded by Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia and recently further developed by Kai Hakkarainen and Sami…

Video games offer an exciting opportunity for learners to engage in computational thinking in informal contexts. This paper describes a genre of learning environments called constructionist video games that are especially well suited for developing learners' computational thinking skills. These games blend features of conventional video games with…

Despite rapid growth in the numbers of students with disabilities enrolling in higher education, there is limited research about their experiences in colleges and universities, and information about their collegiate activism is even more limited. Through a constructivist grounded theory study of 59 college students and recent graduates, we…

This article explores the use and usefulness of carefully designed transdisciplinary pedagogical templates (TPTs) aligned to different learning theories. The TPTs are based on the Learning Design Framework outlined in the Larnaca Declaration (Dalziel et al. in this collection). The generation of pedagogical plans or templates is not new. However,…

The study depicts the procedure of writing a constructivist dissertation by reporting side by side the story of HIV-infected African American women's reproductive health decision-making. The context of these women served as the framework from which the dissertation was written. The article describes how these women and their stakeholders…

This paper provides a critical analysis of art-based research in education, that is, in constructivist learning and teaching. It presents the methodological features and advantages of art-based research in terms of the axiological, ontological and epistemological features of the constructivist, participatory and critical scientific paradigm, and…

The purpose of this dissertation is to test a model of relationships among factors characterizing aspects of a student-centered constructivist learning environment and student outcomes of satisfaction and academic achievement in introductory undergraduate chemistry courses. Constructivism was chosen as the theoretical foundation for this research…

The recent proliferation of technological devices with natural user interfaces (e.g., touchscreen tablets) is regenerating scholarship on the role of sensorimotor interaction in conceptual learning. Some researchers of mathematical education have adopted views from constructivism, phenomenology, enactivism, and ecological dynamics to interpret…

This design case describes the development of the Invention Coach, an intelligent exploratory learning environment (ELE) for the constructivist activity of Invention. The Invention Coach scaffolds students as they invent mathematical formulas to describe contrasting cases. In this paper, we detail our process and rationale for three key design…

For any given Game Based Learning (GBL) project to be successful, the player must learn something. Designers may base their work on pedagogical research, but actual game design is still largely driven by intuition. People are famously poor at unsupported methodical thinking and relying so much on instinct is an obvious weak point in GBL design…

In the current, very complex, and even conflicted discourse about schools, one thing is clear: Schools need to be about student learning. Schools need to ensure that students are good readers, proficient writers, capable mathematicians, competent scientists, and knowledgeable historians. Students also need to learn to work together, be healthy, be…

In this research, it was aimed to analyze the classroom teachers' level of creating a constructivist learning environment in terms of various variables. For that purpose, relational screening model was used in the research. Classroom teachers' level of creating a constructivist learning environment was determined using the "constructivist…

In this paper I discuss the challenges of teaching science concepts and discourse in preschool in light of the study conducted by Kristina Andersson and Annica Gullberg. I then suggest a complementary approach to teaching science at this level from the perspective of social construction of knowledge based on Vygotsky's theory (1934/1987). In…