With the current focus on constructivist perspectives, science demonstrations have fallen out of favor in some circles. Demonstrations are easy to do and offer many benefits and unique opportunities in the constructivist classroom. With careful use, demonstrations can be powerful teaching tools. A wonderful quality of a demonstration (or a series…

Secondary school students were asked to state their preference for an objectivist or a constructivist learning environment and consider the consequent implications for their role as a learner. They did this by identifying with the dialogue depicted in two concept cartoons. Results indicate an overwhelming preference among students for a…

Andragogy is the art and science of adult education that focuses on real-life application and problem-solving capacity (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 1998). This approach emphasizes that training effectiveness is enhanced through trainees' actual performance of the task. Workers learn better when they perceive that learning will help them perform…

Although the constructs of individualism and collectivism appear to bring explanatory power to analyses of culture and psychology, they fail to adequately account for the complexities of social interactions and the multiplicity of people's social judgments. The research considered in the chapters in this volume offers evidence for the need to go…

In this article, the authors comment on Eric Fox's description of functional contextualism which makes several contributions to instructional design and technology (IDT). They agree that functional contextualism does indeed provide some "theoretical clarity and philosophical cohesion," not just for constructivism, but also for understanding…

Students examine the bacterial expansion pattern and attempt to relate what they discover to expanding powers of two. They also relate what they see and discover to increasing living space requirements in a world of infinite space and finite space to discover that living space decreases as a function of one over expanding powers of two. The…

This article describes the instructional design theoretical foundation of a desktop virtual reality-based learning environment aimed at complementing the current novice driver education system in Malaysia. It provides an elaboration of how various components of the learning environment are designed to support this theoretical underpinning that…

This article sets out to examine the question: how do social science textbooks used in the Dominican public schools portray national identity and ethnicity to its students? This article examines how the popular contemporary Dominican perspective on "blackness" plays a fundamental role in the current Dominican social science public school…

Considers effective dialogue between teacher and student essential for promoting meaningful learning in the classroom. Effective dialogue enables teachers and students to be active in the construction of shared understanding by making explicit the overlap between the perspectives held by students and teachers. Suggests that concept maps provide a…

Integrating ICT and primary science appears to be a "tall order." Imposing it, or merely suggesting it to teachers as an approach to teaching science in school, can induce feelings of apprehension, reluctance or, indeed, doubt. In this article, the author describes an innovative approach that may dispel some of these fears, and suggests a…

Through the use of a long-term project in a graduate teacher education course on the importance of play, students learned skills beyond those usually required in a graduate classroom. Students used their understanding and knowledge of play, constructive practice, and project work to develop a family play day at the university lab school. As part…

Since 2001, the author has researched the value of asynchronous discussion for student learning, with the support of the Visible Knowledge Project. Many of the author's observations about the value of asynchronous discussion were previously documented by other researchers. The author has found that asynchronous discussion can involve more…

This article reflects on twenty or more years of development and research in educational computing. It argues that the emphasis on exploiting the technology in the service of contemporary ideas about learning held by many of the early workers has been lost to a focus on the technology itself and its capabilities. In schools this has led to an…

There is much controversy concerning the use of constructivist and behaviorist principles for teaching children with learning disabilities. Although many educators support the use of one paradigm exclusively, the author recommends combining ideas from both perspectives for the most effective instruction. This article includes a brief discussion of…

This article presents a new classification scheme for learning environments in secondary education, based on a review of recent literature on new learning and a review of existing classification schemes. This new classification scheme emphasizes new forms of learning and is organized around three main aspects of learning environments that may be…