Addresses key issues facing designers of Web-based university courses. Topics include online courses; the technologies involved; online study guides; assignments; online examples; course communications; interactive skill building; theoretical bases; and constructivism and instructional design. (Author/LRW)

Explains Rom Harre's theory of identity projects. Discusses the educational implications of Harre's model, the 'social reality matrix' (individual identity is dependent on social context), for the teaching of English, foreign language, and mathematics in the lower secondary school curriculum (ages 11-16). (CMK)

This article follows a secondary school social studies teacher in Alabama through five years of working to integrate technology and constructivism into his classroom. Results show successes in helping students gain new skills or enhance existing skills in technology, critical thinking, collaboration, presentation, and self-learning. (Author/LRW)

Discussion of elementary school children who have a preferred visual learning style focuses on a study that investigated the impact of the use of computers and a visually rich software program in a constructivist classroom environment on their writing. Results show an increase in volume and linguistic complexity in their writing skills. (LRW)

This article examines individuals in a community as defined by their membership in an organization. In such a setting, individuals often make use of their social contacts to make sense of events in the organization. Yet, the organizational justice literature is generally silent on how these contacts shape information seeking, volunteering, and…

Statistics is known to be a difficult subject, demanding students to perceive interrelations between numerous highly abstract concepts. Many students approach the subject with an evasive attitude, often resulting in rote learning yielding little conceptual understanding of statistics. Working from a constructivist paradigm, we aimed to stimulate…

Phase 9, a teacher-designed, classroom centered model, takes teachers through a nine-step process that results in the development of integrated instructional units. Teams of teachers come to an intensive five-day training with lessons they know work well with students. In interdisciplinary teams, they fold technology, state and national standards,…

This article establishes the need and appropriateness for teacher educators to address the intrapersonal readiness of pre-service teachers for the rigors of teaching.It gives details of five major areas in which teacher educators can facilitate student change during a semester using a constructivist growth prospective

Three-dimensional virtual worlds are an emerging medium currently being used in both traditional classrooms and for distance education. Three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds are a combination of desk-top interactive Virtual Reality within a chat environment. This analysis provides an overview of Active Worlds Educational Universe and Adobe…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was (a) to determine if there was a difference in knowledge achievement by Thailand's vocational students instructed using constructivist instruction (with open-end dialogue, problem-based learning, and cooperative learning) and using traditional instruction (with lectures, directed demonstrations, and…

The main purpose of this study was to explore the effects of long-term constructivist-oriented science instruction on elementary school students' process of constructing cognitive structures. Furthermore, such effects on different science achievers were also investigated. The subjects of this study were 69 fifth graders in Taiwan, while they were…

This article describes digital game-based learning (DGBL), the uniting of educational content with computer or online games, that holds the potential for a wealth of educational applications, if managed properly. DGBL motivates by virtue of being fun. It is versatile, can be used to teach almost any subject or skill, and, when used correctly, is…

Bearing in mind students' misconceptions about basic concepts in astronomy, the present study conducted a series of constructivist activities aimed at changing future elementary and junior high school teachers' conceptions about the cause of seasonal changes, and several characteristics of the Sun-Earth-Moon relative movements like Moon phases,…

Through a LISREL analysis, this study validated the Constructivist Internet-based Learning Environment Survey (CILES). CILES consisted of six scales, sorted by two aspects. The first aspect, the cognitive-metacognitive aspect, included the scales of student negotiation, inquiry learning, and reflective thinking, whereas the second aspect, the…

This paper provides an argument in favor of a specific pedagogical method of using the history of science to help students develop more informed views about nature of science (NOS) issues. The paper describes a series of lesson plans devoted to encouraging students to engage, "unbeknownst to them", in similar reasoning that led…