In contemporary science education, the trend is to engage students in hands-on activities in which they must manipulate equipment and gather data in an effort to answer questions. Hands-on experiences may turn out to be meaningless unless the experiences are well designed, planned, and focused so that students are guided to construct accurate…

This study examined the effects of Making and Writing Words (MWW), a variation of the Making Words word study activity by Cunningham and Cunningham (1992), on second-grade students word learning. MWW was implemented daily with a group of second-grade students' over a five-month period. Results indicated that students who received the MWW treatment…

This article describes an approach to teaching a required preservice course in special education using problem-based learning (PBL). PBL is an instructional method informed by constructivist theory. Pre-service teachers engage in solving problems that are representative of actual situations they may encounter in their teaching practice. They are…

The term autonomy has multiple meanings based on diversity in theoretical views in current educational literature. Examples are given of multiple meanings of autonomy, and comparisons are made to the Piagetian view of autonomy as self-regulation implying separateness within community. A case is made for the relevance of autonomy as an educational…

Multimedia is one of the biggest buzzwords around in education in this age of computer technology. Multimedia is short for multiple media and simply means using computers to bring together words, photographs, sounds, animations and video. In this article, the author talks about multimedia presentations as a powerful education learning tool. It is…

Human resource development is conceptualized here in terms of levels of action: representations, experience, relations, and communities. Functionality is taken as a hallmark of good human resource development in these. Yet reflecting on what works, and on innovations in human resource development, factors other than those associated with…

Lance and Loertscher warn that it is possible to use high-quality information resources and still create ineffective learning experience for K-12 students. To illustrate, they discuss the ?bird unit,? the type of research activity where students search for information in order to fill in worksheets that they transform into essays and…

Teachers of mathematics face a particular tension, which the authors call the "planning paradox". If teachers plan from objectives, the tasks they set are likely to be unrewarding for the pupils and mathematically impoverished. Planning from tasks may increase pupils' engagement but their activity is likely to be unfocused and learning difficult…

Peer coaching (PC) is one experiential learning method that can be used to enhance the depth of learning in managerial education. The paper explores the concept of peer coaching, and reports on the experiences of 43 students who participated in a PC program as part of their postgraduate management education. Powerful learning effects are reported…

This paper seeks to explain how constructivism addresses career as narrative. First, the narrative approach to career is briefly contrasted with traditional ones. Next, the theory of narrative is outlined, and some of the relevance of narrative for understanding career is presented. The notion of constructivism is then discussed from the…

The explanations of thirty primary pupils for changes in matter were recorded through individual, semi-structured interviews. The analysis of data pointed to the construction of a system for classifying pupils' explanations of changes in matter. A parallel analysis of data focused on the identification and interpretation of associations between…

Criticisms have recently been voiced of constructivism, the leading metaphor of human learning since the 1970s. Inspired by inconsistencies in interpretations of constructivism in current literature, we examine the underlying epistemological beliefs of popular constructivist theories and their criticisms. We find that popular constructivist claims…

Professional learning communities have become one of the most talked about ideas in education today. Many K-12 schools are working to become professional learning communities in the hope that student learning will improve when adults commit themselves to talking collaboratively about teaching and learning and then take action that will improve…

The National Council for the Social Studies has explicitly advocated technology integration into the social studies classroom to transform the teaching and learning of key social studies content and skills. While the call for technology integration into the social studies classroom is clear, the application of technology within the realm of social…

In recent years, career theory and practice has been challenged to revise and reinvigorate itself in order to remain relevant in the post-modern world. The most fundamental challenge is to produce an identity for career practice that is congruent with the post-modern world (Watson & McMahon, 2005). Career research is facing a similar challenge as…