Describes the planning and implementation of a team-taught two-course sequence for secondary educators on adolescent education. The courses included substantial information on disabilities and special education. The approach to team teaching, based on a constructivist model of learning, is illustrated through the presentation of specific learning…

Experiential learning generally, and service learning specifically, can teach citizenship skills necessary to a democracy, unify the curriculum, better serve at-risk students, and accommodate different learning styles. Gives arguments and criteria for integrating service learning into mainstream education and examples of programs utilizing service…

Utilizes the psychological and sociocultural components of a constructivist paradigm to provide a detailed analysis of how the cognitive constructions students make as they enumerate 3D arrays of cubes develop and change in an inquiry-based, problem-centered mathematics classroom. Describes the classroom work of three pairs of 5th-grade students…

Summarizes a complex study of a science-teacher-education program whose goal was to graduate teachers who held conceptual change conceptions of teaching science and were disposed to put hem into practice. Concludes that there are influences on prospective teachers from their content coursework that have significant implications for how they view…

Describes the development of the practices and perspectives of one elementary school teacher as she engaged in teacher-as-researcher methodology in both urban and suburban settings. Documents how the teacher-as-researcher began to explore science inquiry in an elementary setting and how students, parents, and educators became co-learners,…

Presents examples of chemical education research that illustrate changes in focus, method, and direction over the past 50 years. Contains more than 50 references. (WRM)

Explains Cultural Connections, a model for implementing constructivist, intercultural distance learning partnerships. Highlights include a theoretical framework; social constructivist pedagogy; intercultural communication; telecommunications; Web pages; and examples of a middle school partnership in Texas, a fourth-grade connection between Texas…

Reviews current trends away from multiple-choice testing to alternative forms of student evaluation. Discusses elements contributing to these trends: emphases on critical-thinking skills and active learning, research supporting a constructivist view of learning, efforts to develop academic standards and companion performance-based assessments, and…

Reanalyzes pretest and posttest interviews from a large classroom study using a situated cognition framework. Concludes that cognition is a dynamic process that changes in different ways over shorter and longer time scales. Contains 40 references. (DDR)

Reports on the ways in which one teacher's teaching of trainee-teachers was adapted to reflect the principles she wanted them to explore in relation to their own work. Drawing on Vygotsky's concept of relational imitation and Dewey's notion of learning through direct experience, suggests ways of challenging the transmission paradigm and…

Investigated the additive effect of teachers' training in Consistency Management and Cooperative Discipline (CMCD) on a constructivist mathematics program in Chapter I elementary schools. Upper elementary school students of teachers skilled in both CMCD and constructivist mathematics showed higher achievement gains than students from schools with…

Reports on a pilot study that examined use by sixth-grade students in Costa Rica of a mathematical microworld written in LOGO. The investigation had three phases: (1) open exploration of the microworld; (2) group discussion and sharing of hypotheses; and (3) guided discovery and problem solving. (Contains 11 references.) (SLW)

This paper advocates the use of social constructivist perspectives in developing collaborative educational research studies. The perspectives were developed during a Canadian project on curriculum and context in the use of computers for secondary classroom learning. The paper explores the interrelated epistemological and ethical implications of…

Discusses technology use in secondary education and how to integrate it into the classroom. Topics include developing a cadre of teachers who are comfortable using computers who can then help others; time factors; constructivism; computer laboratories versus classroom clusters; student research projects; finding appropriate Web sites; and block…

Describes authentic pedagogy, providing theoretical background and a conceptualization of authentic pedagogy within the context of instruction and research. Examines the extent to which characteristics of authentic pedagogy were found in three Dutch secondary schools, concluding that all three lacked the characteristics. (CMK)