Describes the interplay of goals, teacher development, and assessment in the context of a yearlong research and development project designed to integrate the teaching of science, reading, and writing processes in a conceptually based, constructivist curriculum for middle school students who read below grade level. (ZWH)

This article uses a sociocultural perspective of teaching and learning to synthesize previous articles in the series and speculate on future inquiry in the field of learning disabilities. It provides a model showing the expanding sociocultural contexts that frame learning and teaching. (DB)

This response to EC 605 995 (on trends in education of individuals with disabilities) contends that constructivist teaching helps students make meaning of their experiences, that active participation in general education activities is a legitimate educational outcome because of its inherent functionality, and that educational funds should be used…

Presents a historical overview of learning theories in mathematics education applied to the teaching of integers. Theories discussed are meaning vs. rote learning; direct vs. incidental; discovery vs. exposition; concrete vs. abstract; and construction vs. transmission. Includes a reproducible activity sheet and 19 references. (MKR)

Describes a teaching experiment that uses the Learning Cycle to achieve the reorientation of physics' students conceptual frameworks away from commonsense perspectives toward scientifically rigorous outlooks. Uses Archimedes' principle as the content topic while using the Learning Cycle to remove students' nonscientific preconceptions. (JRH)

Discusses the concept and design of an enriched learning and information environment that was originally developed at Indiana University in partnership with AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph). Topics addressed include constructivism, cognitive tools, representing expert behavior, apprenticeship, technological tools, information tools,…

Argues that the debate about media attributes versus instructional methods should be shifted from instruction- and media-centered to a learner-centered conception of learning. Learning with media should be explored on the macro level (where learning is situationally dependent) and on the micro level (where design should support, instead of…

Describes five college and two high school students' understandings of function and limit in a graphics calculator-based environment and identifies instances where students' understanding seems to have been influenced by the availability of a graphing calculator. (27 references) (MKR)

Describes what research has found about the use of collaborative mind mapping to facilitate the development of constructivist preservice teacher education programs. The paper discusses explicit connections between collaborative mind mapping and constructivism, varieties of mind maps, mind mapping as an invitation to thought, and how to use mind…

This paper urges special educators to be wary of borrowing fashionable rhetoric of postmodernism to justify constructivism in the reform of instruction and curriculum without disentangling accompanying constructs and values. There are higher stakes for special education, particularly in national curriculum and testing reform, that accompany…

Analyzes how practice in mathematics education might be reformed toward a professional practice. Argues that conventional school mathematics be replaced by a constructivist school mathematics based on children's use of their schemes of actions and operations in learning situations as illustrated through examples of the numerical schemes of…

Describes a theoretical frame for understanding cognitive development to outline the planning and performance of a unit on electrostatics. Analyzes a female student's learning process and the development of the complexity of her cognitive skills. (PR)

Interviewed 10 students in a secondary school teacher education program to determine the students' understandings of environment. Four conceptualizations of environment were portrayed: social, political, bio-physical, and inclusive. Four conceptualizations of human-nature relationships were described: connected, separate,…

Examines the impact of a specially designed in-service model on teacher understanding of selected science concepts. From an analysis of 42 teachers' concept maps, there was significant growth in the number of valid propositions expressed by teachers between the initial and final mappings in all topic groups.(PR)

Argues that by examining which concepts of a particular area of physics are fundamental and which are defined, teachers can choose concepts for investigation that progress logically and should minimize students' misconceptions and confusion. (Author)