Outlines learning theories and their implications for the role of educational technology: (1) post-Skinner neobehaviorism; (2) Piaget's constructivism; (3) Vygotsky's social constructivism; and (4) situated cognition. (SK)

Outlines three approaches to numeracy instruction: (1) traditional positivism, the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student; (2) constructivism, in which learning is contextual and culturally meaningful; and (3) critical constructivism, which enables students to reflect on learning and its social context. (SK)

Studied how understanding arises through interviews with 30 first-year university students. Found three main categories of conceptions: (1) experience; (2) mental construction; and (3) merging with reality. Relates results to constructivist models of learning and other phenomenographic studies of conceptions of understanding. (SLD)

Information and communications technologies used in interactive learning environments and networked communities have led to new constructivist roles for the learner: explorer, constructor, researcher, collaborator, judge, reflective practitioner, and problem solver. (SK)

Emotions experienced as imaginative engagement are central to making meaning from experience. Entering into conscious dialogue with images provides a method of making sense of emotions in adult learning. (Contains 40 references.) (SK)

Discusses changes in accepted approaches to teaching and learning, shifts in psychological and pedagogical theory towards a constructivist view of learning, and the consequences of these theoretical shifts for computer assisted learning. Explains a classification scheme for constructivism that provides a framework for looking at constructivist…

Constructivism has assumed a dominance with mathematics education but it ignores the social implications of the construction of meaning. It is argued that constructivism is a liberal discourse that valorizes the individual construction of meaning. In doing this, the social and political contexts in which mathematical knowledge is located is…

Discusses critical constructivism which addresses the sociocultural contexts of knowledge construction and serves as a powerful referent for cultural reform. Contains 75 references. (Author/MKR)

The procedural versus constructivist debate mirrors the Sophist/Socratic divide of the fifth century B.C. The primary malaise of education today is use of the passive proceduralist approach. Focus on the why rather than the what opens the door to critical thinking and substantive intellectual change. (SK)

Presents a cognitive theory of multimedia learning that draws on dual coding theory, cognitive load theory, and constructivist learning theory and derives some principles of instructional design for fostering multimedia learning. These include principles of multiple representation, contiguity, coherence, modality, and redundancy. (SLD)

Examines the philosophical underpinnings of the theory, outlines the impact of the doctrine on contemporary science education, and details the relativist and subjectivist interpretation of Thomas Kuhn's work found in constructivist writings. Indicates the problems that constructivist theory places in the way of teaching the content of science.…

Discusses von Glaserfeld's conception of constructivism and the variety of approaches to it: realist, radical, psychological, critical, cognitive, sociocultural, interactive, social, and Deweyan. Outlines criteria for differentiating between these theories: communality, objectivity, practice, and historicity and change. (Contains 43 references.)…

Jim McKenzie's reply to the author's paper suggests that there are substantial areas of disagreement between US. McKenzie appears to agree with the central philosophical point that the author wished to make, that internal representationalism is incoherent. The author's target was that set of doctrines known as "cognitivism", which is based on the…

As any glance at contemporary educational literature demonstrates, the concept of "constructivism" carries with it enormous appeal. Contemporary literature also reveals that many current educational reform initiatives encourage teaching practices that many people refer to as constructivist (Brooks and Brooks 1993; Roth 1993; Crawford and Witte…

Although delivered via distance learning technology, distributed learning is substantially different in fundamental ways. Distributed learning could be described as a distance learning environment that supports the co-construction of knowledge, an endeavour where learners build a learning community where they are given and take on more…