Describes a "Basics of Teaching Physics" course as an approach to training teaching assistants (TAs) in science, math, engineering, and technology (SMET) departments. The regular graduate course is based on constructivist learning: TAs construct their own understanding through guided questions, problem solving, reading and analyzing papers,…

Examines how, through discourse processes, a third grade teacher and her students came to situationally define science in their classroom. Uses a discourse analytical approach to examine the classroom members' experimentation logic, their explanations and scientific decisions, and their accounts of events. (Contains 82 references.) (Author/YDS)

Illustrates an optimistic view of music education focusing on: (1) the use of a more constructionistic philosophy; (2) the use of music technology to teach music more effectively to a wider audience; and (3) a more considered approach to assessment that includes both traditional and less-traditional ways for students to demonstrate understanding.…

Offers guidelines to faculty and designers in higher education regarding transitioning from face-to-face classroom instruction to Web-based instruction. The framework used involves four perspectives: managerial, including student needs; pedagogical; technical; and social. Compares Web-based design under objectivist and constructivist assumptions.…

A professional development experience introduced 102 traditional teachers from rural Michigan to constructivist pedagogy over a 3-year period. Participant comments reveal three themes: frustration with the uncertainties of changing mindsets and incorporating constructivism into practice; the usefulness of representing thoughts about constructivism…

Focuses on defining constructivism, which includes learning as an active process of knowledge construction and instruction as a process of supporting that construction. Discusses 10 constructivist assumptions about learning. Describes 11 actions that define the constructivist teacher. (AEF)

Discusses student and teacher perceptions of a new development in the use of the predict-observe-explain (POE) strategy. This development involves the incorporation of POE tasks into a multimedia computer program that uses real-life, digital video clips of difficult, expensive, time consuming, or dangerous scenarios as stimuli for these tasks.…

Examined practices in a constructivist graduate teacher education program, documenting changes in teachers and their practice and analyzing connections between program practices and teacher change. Data from field notes, teacher and faculty interviews, classroom observations, faculty ratings of teachers, and artifacts helped develop a model for…

This article considers the pedagogical theory of constructivism in the integration of curricular content areas and the infusion of the arts in the context of the recent terrorist attacks. It uses products created by third-grade students to illustrate how drawing and discussion can be used as precursors to narrative composition. (Contains…

Describes one professor's experiences, doubts, frustrations and rewards with developing and teaching an online course. Suggests that four factors influence the success of an online course: development of a risk-free environment for student discussion via the course conference; student-control of the course conference; balance in the nature and…

Argues that it is easier to transform schools and the process of schooling when social, cultural, political, and economic issues frame the discourse about how to ensure that all students have access to an equitable education. (DDR)

Provides background information on constructivism and explains how this theory can be integrated into geography education. Describes a geography course that employs the constructivist-oriented strategy of team-based collaborative inquiry along with Internet communication tools to foster student cooperation, interaction, and comparative analysis of…

Surveys constructivism and developmental psychology, including work by Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, Gardner, Kamii, and DeVries. Considers the influence of Montessori pedagogy on early childhood education in contrast to its neglect in professional literature. (JPB)

States that the proponents of "constructivistic didactic" are claiming a new approach in the field of General Didactic. Explores four background theories of constructivistic didactic, reconstructs its central arguments, offers examples of constructivistic teaching recommendations, and analyzes the constructivistic didactic in the context…

Examines the discussion of a constructivist consideration of learning for its capacity to limit the position of educational instruction by a new perspective on the subject. Offers a learning theory that understands learning as a subjective activity in the context of society. (CMK)