Although established in the last century, the theories of two well-known psychologists, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky continue to be used throughout the world to prepare teachers and caregivers of young children (ACEI/Wortham, 2013). From an historical perspective, their theories provide insight regarding children's growth, development, and…

Faculty and Doctoral Students in a Learning Design & Technology program have been researching and studying instructional design models over the last year in light of current changes in learning and design theory. This work is part of a yearlong project related to the following two questions: 1) What are instructional design (ID) models that…

Black males graduate from college at rates lower than their female counterparts. They also graduate at lower rates than Asian, Hispanic, and White males and females. This study used Constructivist Grounded Theory to understand the experiences of Black males who graduated from predominantly White four-year institutions. Responses from 10 Black male…

There is scarce literature explaining how leaders leverage the influence necessary to change universities. This study aimed to illuminate leadership practices that seek to make universities more responsive to, and responsible for, the needs and success of students. In doing so, this research explored practices that leaders used to align a…

This paper presents findings from a two-year qualitative case study of a new, break-the-mold public elementary school. This school focused on reforming traditional models of instruction with student-centered learning in order to engage and better address the needs of all students. Using a constructivist perspective to understand the dynamics of…

The constructivist learning approach is suggested as a means for facilitating students' learning of science and increasing their participation in this learning. Several studies have shown the contribution of this approach to the different aspects of students' learning of science, though little research has examined the contribution of this…

This study investigates innovative ways that outdoor educators can actively promote young participants' authentic voice in educational research and, in turn, increase our understanding of their worldview through accurately recording what children are seeing, hearing, doing, and touching when they are beyond our researcher's gaze. The study was…

Narrative and story play a central role in cognitive and cultural development of children. In this article, I explore a narrative-centred pedagogy used to address the teaching and learning concerns of my pupils from Helena infant school, Zimbabwe. I document how, as a novice teacher, I deployed narrative learning in my teaching of English as a…

Drawing on qualitative data, this article presents an analysis of six secondary science teachers' expectations and practices related to teaching outdoors during a professional development programme. Using Foucault's and Bernstein's theories of "space", routines and set practices, I argue that participant teachers' fear of losing control…

In this paper, it is argued that education, especially in the online learning setting, should be viewed as a complex, dynamic endeavor. Design and evaluation grounded in systems thinking principles of relationships and connectedness, as well as complexity theory concepts such as self-organization and emergence, prove valuable tools for…

The aim of this study is four fold: (a) to investigate the beliefs of elementary (grades 1-3) and middle school (4-6 grades) math teachers about teaching, learning and nature of mathematics; (b) to explore their teaching practices of mathematics; (c) to study the impact of their educational qualifications, years of experience, major on their…

This study aimed to investigate relations between perceived constructivist learning environments in a social studies teaching course in consideration of attitudes toward the course, academic delay of gratification, and students' social studies teaching self-efficacy beliefs. A total of 295 preservice elementary school teachers participated in the…

Consciousness-raising practices at the heart of feminism remain one of the most vital components of transformative learning theory and provide the foundation for its constructivist underpinnings. Recently, there has been a call for educators to employ consciousness-raising practices outside of traditional classroom settings and to focus greater…

This dissertation documents the lives of six science teachers whose multifaceted identities were influenced over time by Hawai'i's unique sociocultural and biogeographical factors. Narrative inquiry was utilized through individual interviews which spanned a five-year period. From "restorying," identity narratives and maps were…

This case study explored the role of a Professional Learning Team (PLT) in the planning, teaching, and assessment of inquiry-based learning in social studies with a single high school, world history PLT consisting of four teachers. Theories of constructivism and pedagogical content knowledge provided a framework for the study. Data were analyzed…