This paper focuses on how teachers guide construction of knowledge in classrooms. We suggest that guidance hinges on the kind of dialogue teachers choose to engage students in. We propose several classroom dialogue types relevant for the construction of knowledge and suggest that critical dialogue is particularly effective for knowledge…

Instructionism refers to educational practices that are teacher-focused, skill-based, product-oriented, non-interactive, and highly prescribed. Constructivism refers to educational practices that are student-focused, meaning-based, process-oriented, interactive, and responsive to student interest. There is disagreement regarding which curricular…

Irony has been selected as the organizing concept of this book because it offers a link between the authors' five main concerns. Their first concern is to bring to the fore a perspective on organizations that has existed for some time but has remained marginal to the prescriptive leadership and management literature. The second concern is to…

Meaningful learning of social studies content, skills, and values through a constructivist approach is this textbook's approach. The textbook is designed to help teachers facilitate students' development into problem-solvers and decision-makers who take an active role as citizens of their world. It is designed to illustrate the following: the…

This paper challenges traditional perspectives of professional development through a reconceptualization of early childhood professional growth. A review of the early childhood professional development literature reveals the problematic nature of the linear perspectives and deficit models of staff development prevalent in the early childhood…

This paper addresses problems inherent in traditional science teaching and argues that the pitfalls of assimilation and exclusion can be avoided by adopting an anthropological approach: regarding scientists as a sub-cultural group with its own language and ways of thinking about, investigating, and explaining phenomena and events, its distinctive…

This document contains the following full and short papers on networked social learning from ICCE/ICCAI 2000 (International Conference on Computers in Education/International Conference on Computer-Assisted Instruction): (1)" A European Learning Environment: Reflections on Teaching and Learning in a Multinational Virtual Learning…

From the theoretical reference frame of constructivism, much of the rhetoric and positive research findings in support of microprocessor based laboratory (MBL) activities facilitating science learning can be interpreted in terms of the increased opportunities for student-student interactions and peer group discussions about familiar and discrepant…

This report describes aspects of the professional engagement of American teachers and examines relationships between professional engagement and teaching practice, including instruction involving computer use. Professional engagement is measured by: the frequency that teachers had informal substantive communications with other teachers at their…

Recent theories of student learning have changed how education is viewed by educators and the public. One current concern is assessing the objectives of instruction. To be successful, state mandated standards must represent what students should achieve. Constructivism, a currently popular theory, stresses helping students do well in school and…

Without teacher change, a successful educational reform is either incidental or superficial. Therefore, it is very important to understand the nature of teacher change for science educators. Mezirow's transformation theory, a constructivist theory, provides a theoretical basis for both teacher learning and teacher change. This paper presents an…

The human and organizational infrastructure that is required to support the efficacious use of technology by teachers in the classroom was studied in three elementary schools in Alberta, Canada. The resulting impacts on engaged student learning were also studied, and the usefulness of Alberta's Galileo Educational Network Association initiative…

This study built on a 2001-02 classroom observation study of Washington K-12 and technical schools that identified the extent of constructivist teaching activity. Results from classroom observations found that strong constructivist teaching was observable in 17 percent of the classroom lessons. The other 83 percent of the lessons observed may have…

This book aims to show readers the results that can occur in secondary science classrooms when students' interest and curiosity about science are brought firmly to the center of the curriculum. In particular, the book demonstrates how girls can become more interested in learning science when such topics as pregnancy, childbirth, or sexism in…

The history of U.S. pedagogy involves episodes in which psychology and education have shared a common goal, specifically, to understand how children learn. Although the marriage between psychology and education has not always been a smooth one, in general, the effects produced by this union on education have been beneficial to children. Most…