Two key concepts in the Vygotskian perspective, social interaction and scaffolding, have implications for emergent literacy. Children develop literacy as a result of trying to communicate with others in the environment. Vygotsky focused on literacy as purely social, influenced by a community of learners, including children, peers, and adults.…

This paper considers different forms of classroom interaction, focusing particularly on cooperation, the different forms of cooperation, and the functionality of these forms with regard to learning opportunities. The form of student cooperation evaluated is defined as help. The research context is Gotz Krummheuer's project on the reconstruction of…

A 12-hour curriculum/methods block designed to lead elementary education teacher candidates through a constructivist, integrated model of teaching and learning is outlined. This block is part of a graduate level program that leads to licensure and a master's of Curriculum and Instruction in Curriculum and Instruction called Initial Teacher…

Constructivist classroom environments are characterized by student engagement in science processes and manipulating experimental materials with experiential teaching of specific science concepts. Constructivist classrooms are where teachers build models of students' science knowledge, students participate actively in determining the viability of…

Because change in mathematics teachers' instructional practices is fundamental to the vision of school mathematics education embodied in the NCTM Standards documents, it is critical that mathematics teacher educators develop a thorough understanding of the process of change in teaching practice. To date, the process of change has remained somewhat…

Noting that a list of individual student to whole class configurations and a set of activities are inadequate, this booklet argues that the question of how to organize classrooms for learning in the language arts is complex. The booklet argues that decisions about time, space, materials and resources, and student grouping must flow from an…

A study considered women in broadcast communications academe who achieve their own purposes to have one of two epistemological perspectives: constructivist or proceduralist (non-constructivist). Women in broadcast academe were surveyed (N=428) and interviewed in depth (N=14) to measure epistemological perspectives and mentoring experiences. The…

The interaction of emotion and cognition has received experimental attention, but the results have generally been weak and sometimes contradictory. Why this work on mood and memory has faltered is discussed, and a more holistic approach to the study of emotion and cognition is proposed. It is argued that a constructivist approach to memory may be…

Constructivists view thinking and learning differently from other learning theorists: they believe that learners do not acquire knowledge that is transmitted to them; rather, learners construct knowledge through intellectual activity. Sharp contrasts exist between a "transmission" model of instruction and the constructivist perspective.…

This paper describes how the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is using constructivist theory and research to inform educational policy and practice. The state's most concentrated and comprehensive effort in this direction is Project Construct, a unified instructional approach for children ages 3-7. The project consists of…

There is a growing body of current research that addresses literacy from the perspective of literacy as a social process. This perspective underscores the need to examine the culture of classroom in our attempt to understand how students learn and become literate within a discipline. This paper presents two case studies of high school biology…

The essays in this book form a dialogue between instructional developers and learning theorists about the implications of constructivism for instructional design practice. Following an introduction entitled "Constructivism: New Implications for Instructional Technology" (Thomas M. Duffy and David H. Jonassen), the papers are divided into…

Selected issues must be considered in choosing an effective assessment method from diverse procedures. External means of evaluation stress the use of national and state-developed tests to measure student achievement. In addition to external evaluations of students, administrators may use external tests for teachers. Internal means of evaluating…

Examination of the development of the standards documents of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) points to constructivism as the central view of learning that underlies the reform movement in mathematics education. Constructivism is a theory of how learning occurs. It assumes that knowledge is not passively received, but rather…

This article discusses the fundamental difference between the poststructuralist and evolutionary perspective of the postmodern emphasis on multiculturalism. The author discusses how Michael Foucault's relativistic view of the episteme is useful to the extent that it describes how individuals and groups of people generate knowledge, but because it…