This case study analyzed how an online learning community developed among a cohort of 18 students in an instructional design and technology master's degree program taught at a distance. Students' reflections about the effectiveness of the program revealed that a community-centered approach to learning, a constructivist learning environment, and…

In the past two years, three graduate students and a senior faculty member have co-taught a participatory action research (PAR) course to undergraduate and graduate students. In this article the co-teachers advocate a set of pedagogical principles and practices in a PAR-oriented classroom that establishes congruency with community PAR projects in…

This paper derives from the innovative language teacher education programme described in a previous article published in "Language Learning Journal" (Burley & Pomphrey, 2002). It outlines the development in student teachers' understanding of their role as language educators through an analysis of the beginning and end of this…

In higher education, competing demands for accountability and innovation in the face of globalization, technology, and budget cuts cause us to consider how best to prepare learners who will learn for a lifetime. We contend that a shift in our understanding of curriculum design to accommodate learner-centeredness will provide the framework for…

Ulises Mejias examines how social software--information and communications technologies that facilitate the collaboration and exchange of ideas--enables students to participate in distributed research, an approach to learning in which knowledge is collectively constructed and shared. During Fall 2005, Mejias taught a graduate seminar that provided…

Multimedia has the potential of providing bioscience education novel learning environments and pedagogy applications to foster student interest, involve students in the research process, advance critical thinking/problem-solving skills, and develop conceptual understanding of biological topics. "Cancer Cell Biology," an interactive, multimedia,…

Schools and colleges of education have been criticized for not adequately preparing preservice teachers to integrate technology in their future classrooms. It has been proposed that a central component in the preparation of preservice teachers is for the instructors of content methods courses to model strategies for integrating technology that…

Within a constructivist philosophy of learning, teachers, as students, are introduced to different perspectives of teaching with robotic technology while immersed in what Papert called a "constructionist" environment. Robotics allows students to creatively explore computer programming, mechanical design and construction, problem solving,…

"Constructionism" is a theory of learning proposed by Seymour Papert of MIT. Co-instructors for a first year seminar for undergraduate students provided education students with a one-semester constructionist experience to learn by engaging with technology. Students used LEGO[R] construction bricks and pieces to solve problems by building, working…

The use of educational technologies in teaching and learning presents pedagogical concerns and challenges to educators. Combining multimedia technologies with the Web has created new possibilities for the development of instructional materials to deliver course content. However, this use of technology continues to represent traditional conceptions…

Critically reflexive practice embraces subjective understandings of reality as a basis for thinking more critically about the impact of our assumptions, values, and actions on others. Such practice is important to management education, because it helps us understand how we constitute our realities and identities in relational ways and how we can…

Many teacher educators model constructivist pedagogy to preservice teachers in the mathematics classes they take. Preservice teachers however, are not necessarily comfortable being a part of such a class. The following qualitative case study examined the expectations and reactions of a group of preservice teachers who were taking their final…

This articles describes a qualitative research project investigating the effects of participation by preservice teachers in a literacy tutorial early intervention program that was based on a constructivist model utilizing self-reflection and inquiry. Seven recurring themes emerged from the data analysis providing little evidence of growth in…

This article describes research on the learning of object-oriented programming (OOP) by novices. During two academic years, we taught OOP to high school students, using Java and BlueJ. Our approach to teaching featured: objects-first, teaching composed classes relatively early, deferring the teaching of main methods, and focusing on class…

A major issue confronting educators is the extent to which they wish to conform to so-called paradigm shifts in teaching and learning. In the contemporary world of tertiary education these shifts embrace both pedagogy (from instructivist to constructivist) and technology (from classroom to online). As teachers and learners are faced with the…