In this study the authors investigate the experience of Sandy, a nontraditional university undergraduate whose student teaching took place in a small, impoverished rural community in the southwestern U.S. They focus on her student teaching experience with third graders in a community whose youngsters, living in rural poverty, were at-risk in their…

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ways in which creating and sustaining authentic inclusion requires significant alterations to more than the programmatic regularities that characterize schools (Sarason, 1996). Data from ethnographic case studies of inclusive schools in the United States, United Kingdom and Portugal are drawn upon to…

The relationship between the construct of mental attention and "giftedness" is not well established. Gifted individuals could make effective use of their executive functions and this could be related to their mental attentional capacity. The dialectic constructivist model developed by Pascual-Leone introduced the concept of mental…

In this article, the author describes how he had revised his course expectations and English teaching methods in Room 109 at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, Maine, with support from the writing center staff. He instituted thematic portfolios, self-selected reading with a wide range of projects in response to that reading, periodic student…

WebQuests are activities in which students use Web resources to learn about school topics. WebQuests are advocated as constructivist activities and ones generally well regarded by students. Two experiments were conducted in school settings to compare learning using WebQuests versus conventional instruction. Students and teachers both enjoyed…

Constructivism is a perspective on learning that is initiated from the learner's perspective rather than by that of the teacher; understanding is constructed by the learner rather than placed upon the learner. If constructivism is fostered in teacher education, practical reasoning can encourage teacher development to its fullest. (The concept of…

The Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE) database has been developed to support students' progressive discourse. Students can externalize their thoughts in the database in the form of texts or graphics, and then they can manipulate their represented knowledge in building further knowledge. They can asynchronously…

The purpose of this paper is to identify practices and trends in elementary and secondary education literature applicable to early childhood student teacher supervision. The paper begins by reviewing the relevant literature on both historical and current perspectives on early childhood teacher education programs. Then, the goals of student…

This study investigated the effectiveness of experiential learning in promoting student understanding and achievement, as compared to traditional expository instruction. Twenty third-grade students from central Virginia were divided into two heterogeneous groups and taught a single lesson on air using identical content objectives. The control…

This paper compares and contrasts the Internet with other fundamental educational infrastructures throughout history by assessing the affordances and constraints of that medium along with those of oral tradition and print literacy. Highlights include affordances and constraints of the Internet; literacy and the development of education in the…

In this applied research project, the tendency for Youth Workers to treat admissions as a sudden procedural event was problematic at a treatment program. Literature from (brief) constructivist therapies, youth care work, and interviews with administrators, youth workers, and youths at a treatment program were used to solve the problem. The Context…

Building explanations is fundamentally what science is about. Students require support both for constructing their own explanations about the surrounding world, and for reflecting on those explanations in ways that help them to assess the quality of their explanations and the strategies they use to build them. This paper describes the development…

This publication addresses the issues and practical approaches needed to lay the foundation upon which science educators can work together to build effective science programs. It shares the ideas, insights, and experiences of individuals ranging from science supervisors to university personnel to agencies representing science education. Numerous…

This paper examines the novel problem solving actions of a pair of college students. The analysis highlights the role of the solvers' inferential processes including abductions, deductions, and inductions as structuring resources that contribute to both their understanding of the problems they face and the emerging novelty that constitutes their…

While learning to quilt, and subsequently seeing quilting everywhere, one teacher decided to make a quilt with the theme of herself as a teacher. Quilts are stories told in visual form, and connections exist between curriculum theory and quilting. During a Master's program, the teacher learned about various curriculum theorists and was amazed at…