K-12 students enter physical education with many naive conceptions or misconceptions of how motor skills are acquired. One goal of physical education is to teach concepts that will help students learn and perform motor skills, but many practitioners don't know how to provide experiences that will teach students to apply their knowledge…

Critical thinking and knowledge construction have become essential competencies for people in the new information age. In this study, we designed an interactive learning environment involving three forms of interaction: individual reflections, group collaboration and, class discussions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a cultural gap in student perceptions of online collaborative learning and to investigate to what extent student perceptions, motivation, and learning strategies change over time due to the actual involvement in a collaborative e-learning environment (ELE).…

Learning about science needs to be active, collaborative, and connected to the everyday personal lives of children. This book is a collection of humorous conversations, pictures, and activities designed to help children understand how and why changes happen in the world. The focus is on personal experience and how models are developed, how one can…

The purpose of this cross-age study was to investigate elementary students' (N=120) tacit and explicit understandings of dinosaurs. Detailed analysis of audiotaped interviews of children's performance during a Piagetian-type clinical interview suggests that children's conceptual understandings of dinosaurs are first developed at a tacit level from…

This study sought to provide an explanation of (n=13) university students' understanding of the concept of linear inequality as presented in a problem-solving setting. In the course of the analysis of the data, the transition from arithmetic to algebra emerged as a critical issue. Therefore, the study examines the differences in the…

This book includes narratives containing a wealth of detailed and specific images by teachers who are working with constructivist methods and principles to transform their practice along the lines mandated by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards. In contrast to traditional presentations, the papers in this volume contextualize…

This book and its companion volume include narratives by teachers who are working with constructivist methods and principles to transform their practice along the lines mandated by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards. In this volume, nine teachers describe their struggle to understand constructivism and its application to…

The Western Australian Science Education Association is an informal group which meets annually for a conference. This document contains the proceedings of the 1994 conference. Papers included were: (1) "Relationship Between Cognitive Style and Students' Proportional Reasoning Ability" (Ayo Akatugba); (2) "Alternative Modes of…

Four ideas characterize postmodernity: skepticism toward grand narratives, critique of the assumption of a unified human subject, problematization of the notion of representation, and a celebration of otherness and difference. Drawbacks to applying postmodern theories to education include: postmodernism is ill-equipped to deal with morally and…

Becoming a qualitative researcher requires an extensive education. The training is rigorous and the knowledge base is vast, but the most difficult realization for many novice researchers is the heavy emphasis on the "self as research instrument." This study examined novice researchers from three introductory qualitative methods classes.…

This paper reports on an investigation of how students, parents, and staff of 2 schools with reputations for success (they were among 21 schools in the Canadian Education Association's Exemplary School Project) experience and understand leadership. Specifically, the study, guided by a constructivist conception of leadership, sought to find out how…

Dull classroom environments, poor students' attitudes and inhibited conceptual development led to the creation of an innovative mathematics program, the Class Banking System (CBS), which enables teachers to use constructivist ideas and approaches. To assess the effectiveness of the CBS, actual and preferred versions of the Individualized Classroom…

This document describes a study that implemented active learning into a large introductory biology course. Five approaches were employed to promote the active learning: name badges, cooperative learning groups, large group discussion, in-class written responses, and written take-home assignments. The active learning approach takes more time than a…

This paper discusses the importance of scaffolding and other techniques in teaching reading. It details numerous ways to employ scaffolding, such as the following: a teacher may read aloud new passages while students follow along; a teacher may print new words on the chalkboard before students read a passage which uses the words; and teachers may…