Within an elaborated social-constructivist perspective, I conducted a teaching experiment with two fourth graders to study how a teacher and students can jointly produce the content-specific reversible fraction conception. Ongoing and retrospective analysis of the data revealed the non-trivial process by which students can abstract multiplicative…

This monograph chronicles a field-based investigation of children's learning in a second grade mathematics classroom over the course of a school year. The interrelated aspects of the processes by which children learn mathematics with meaning are illustrated here. The investigation was expanded to include a sociological analysis in an attempt to…

This book is addressed to high school principals, teachers, curriculum specialists, counselors, and other educators interested in creating sound change at the building level. The theme of constructivism and constructivist thought pervades the text. Part 1 introduces the reader to constructivism and offers comparisons of a high school based on…

This study examined the influential factors toward conceptual changes in in-service teachers as they engaged in a summer professional development program. The program curricula attempted to challenge teachers over weaknesses in their pedagogical instruction, provide feasible teaching approaches, and cultivate their strengths and interests through…

This study investigated the use of Augusto Boal's model of participatory theater to analyze complex social issues within the context of teacher education coursework. Augusto Boal was the originator of the Theatre of the Oppressed. The study examined the multicultural realities of school and evaluated students' use of Boal to discover further…

The Iowa-Scope, Sequence, and Coordination (SS&C) Program assists schools with reform of their entire middle school programs, grades 6-8, and features the science, technology, and society (STS) instructional approach. This reform translates to the creation of new frameworks for the school program and aims to produce "constructivist"…

Case-based teaching in some fields offers competition experiences as prestigious professional benchmarks and development experiences in professional preparation. Case-based team competition in teacher education can offer possibilities for preservice professional growth and development. Case-based teaching also has a natural fit with constructivist…

This paper looks at factors affecting the success of asynchronous online learning through an investigation of relationships between student perceptions and course design factors in the SUNY (State University of New York) Learning Network, one of the largest asynchronous learning networks in the country. It finds that three such…

Teachers need to stay abreast of the latest trends in the language arts to offer an updated curriculum. The language arts areas are vital in each academic discipline and integrate well with diverse subject matter areas. Some common trends when reading the literature on teaching the language arts are: portfolios; journaling; computerized reading…

This report, the forth in a series from the spring 1998 national survey, "Teaching, Learning, and Computing," examines teachers' survey responses that describe the frequency with which their teaching practice involves those five types of activities and the frequency with which their practice involves more traditional transmission and…

This paper reports on an on-going action research study of the elementary school science education courses at the University of Victoria. The Department of Social and Natural Sciences requires that professors evaluate their teaching effectiveness annually using a variety of methods including student evaluations, peer observations, course outline…

This paper describes how the experience of carrying out qualitative research contributes to student teachers' development of reflective thinking, promotes constructivist approaches in teaching and learning to teach, and supports feminist perspectives in teacher education. Data was collected from a Research on Teaching class at an Israeli teacher…

There is consensus in the United States that schools are not succeeding. This paper presents recent research in mathematics, science, language arts, social studies, and the arts to discuss ways in which to improve instruction and learning in these areas. Featured topics include cooperative learning, problem solving, use of technology, whole…

This study examined changes in student teachers' beliefs related to behaviorist and constructivist learning theories as a result of student teaching and the impact of their cooperating teachers' beliefs on those changes. Participants included all 38 spring 1998 student teachers in an elementary education program at a small state university in…

This study involved a longitudinal examination of a program designed for paraeducators enrolled in an Urban Preservice Degree Articulation in Teacher Education (UPDATE) program. During the first year, 16 paraeducators successfully completed a series of mathematics courses taught using constructivist instructional methods. These user-friendly…