This paper speaks to the challenges, risks, and rewards of teaching about linear functions in a technology-rich environment from a constructivist perspective by describing a Foundations of Algebra class, which was designed and taught to junior high school students in such an environment in the summer of 1991. The design and implementation of the…

This book provides teachers with strategies to engage students actively in learning and focuses on the mathematics and science curricula for the middle and high school years. The strategies selected facilitate connections between the familiar and the unfamiliar. This method promotes learning that students find relevant. The 14 strategies have been…

Teacher roles in contemporary American schools should be more closely aligned to hermeneutics as the study of meaning (interpretation/understanding). A marriage between Platonic notions of interpretation and the quest for meaning with the interpretive theories of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Hans-Georg…

Information highways are high speed data networks used to transport information and link people together. As more limitations of and problems with the information highway ("potholes") become apparent, the highway metaphor may have to be revisited, and the information highway must be examined with a critical eye. Distance educators…

This document contains two articles that develop an argument for how schools must change to meet the demands of democracy; they also present a focused agenda for action. In the first article, "Reframing the School Reform Agenda: Developing Capacity for School Transformation," Linda Darling-Hammond describes how two different paradigms of teaching…

Standards-driven school reform is the national strategy to raise U.S. schools to a world-class level by the year 2000. Schools and school districts must develop plans, that show how to integrate the sets of national goals, standards, and assessments. This paper describes a school-improvement model (SIM) developed by the Gilbert (Iowa) Community…

A perspective is presented for designing instruction in metacognition, drawing on how human beings acquire metacognitive skills and how these skills are interwoven with other thinking skills. An instructional designer must consider the dynamic and integrative nature of metacognition. Traditionally, learning theories, instructional theories, and…

This study uses a comparative case study of two high school teachers' units about the U.S. civil rights movement to explore the construct of subject-specific pedagogy. The research examines each teacher's views of subject matter and learners as a means of understanding and explaining instructional practices. Through that investigation, a number of…

This paper describes the characteristics of microworlds and discusses the basis of their use as educational tools. The power of a microworld as a learning tool is based in the philosophy of constructivism, the Piagetian principle of equilibrium, mental models, and intrinsic motivation. Research results of educational microworld studies appear to…

The papers in this volume outline a vision for teacher education based on the concept of contextual teaching, defined as teaching that enables learning in a variety of in- and out-of-school contexts to solve simulated or real-world problems. They are based on the realization that the construction of knowledge is situated within, and greatly…

The idea that changes in school organization can improve teaching and enhance learning has heavily influenced educational reform over the past decade. With a goal of enabling teachers to promote students' construction of knowledge--so-called "constructivist" teaching--school restructuring has tended to focus on changing: (1) how schools group…

Growing numbers of teachers are turning to cooperative learning methods for literacy instruction, yet recent studies suggest that teachers hold theories of cooperative learning which are unrelated, or even antithetical, to helping students learn to become strategic, independent readers. This paper reports on a study that examined seven teachers'…

The purpose of this case study was to analyze the characteristics of an online learning community from the perspectives of 18 adult learners all of whom completed an online master?s degree program in instructional design and technology. This program was taught at a distance using the Blackboard.com e-learning system. Several program…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to obtain a better understanding of the obstacles and possible solutions for improving science education in Southern Mexico. It provides information about the challenges faced by teachers and school administrators, and possible alternatives for improving the quality of teaching after ten years of a…

This paper presents the background procedure and outcomes of a study of two Year 1 classrooms, one in Seattle, Washington, and the other in Sydney, Australia, that engaged in the constructivist learning experiences of a social studies unit, "Families in Their Neighborhoods" (McGuire, 1997). The unit employed the "Storypath" planning and teaching…