Constructionist learning is characterized by three principles: "learning-by-making,""holistic learning," and a freedom to choose learning styles. This paper describes a project with second grade homeschooling students that tested the feasibility of using HyperCard as a medium for constructionist learning. The "worlds"…

This paper outlines the constructivist approach to teaching and learning and reviews some of the literature to establish a linkage between constructivist theories of learning and humanistic psychology. In particular, the paper recognizes the work of Carl Rogers and suggests that his contributions to the professional literature on teaching and…

This book is designed to help the teacher become a reflective practitioner in the multicultural science classroom. The ideas presented are grounded in constructivist theory and emphasize a multicultural approach to science education. The first section, "Addressing Diversity," deals with issues germane to the science education needs of…

This paper summarizes the literature on research studies in informatics and changes in learning, particularly computer-assisted instruction. Research results themselves are often inconclusive when no allowances are made for different generations of hardware and software or computer types, when the computer is treated as the only variable in the…

Drawing on and extending the work of Jean Piaget into the realm of sociomoral development, this book argues that constructivist education must involve more than the special activities with which it is commonly associated. Planning must also include provision for children's social and moral development, since children construct their moral…

Constructivists believe that counselors and therapists help clients with the construction of knowledge by helping clients expand their alphabet into more flexible, viable, and complex acts of telling (language, conversations, narratives). Ways in which professionals can deconstruct the fundamental assumptions of the mental health professions and…

This paper is the written account of a panel presentation about inquiry-oriented teaching practices. The purpose of this group of papers is to provide an opportunity to explore the state of knowledge of inquiry-oriented teaching based on direct observation of teachers, and analysis of those observations from an inquiry perspective. The paper…

This fastback examines the theory and practice of constructivist teaching and suggests how teachers can decide what form of constructivist teaching they might want to use. Constructivist teaching theory is explored under the headings "knowledge" and "humans." According to constructivist theory, knowledge is constructed by humans, it is conjectural…

This paper speaks to the challenges, risks, and rewards of teaching about linear functions in a technology-rich environment from a constructivist perspective by describing a Foundations of Algebra class, which was designed and taught to junior high school students in such an environment in the summer of 1991. The design and implementation of the…

This book provides teachers with strategies to engage students actively in learning and focuses on the mathematics and science curricula for the middle and high school years. The strategies selected facilitate connections between the familiar and the unfamiliar. This method promotes learning that students find relevant. The 14 strategies have been…

Teacher roles in contemporary American schools should be more closely aligned to hermeneutics as the study of meaning (interpretation/understanding). A marriage between Platonic notions of interpretation and the quest for meaning with the interpretive theories of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Hans-Georg…

Information highways are high speed data networks used to transport information and link people together. As more limitations of and problems with the information highway ("potholes") become apparent, the highway metaphor may have to be revisited, and the information highway must be examined with a critical eye. Distance educators…

This document contains two articles that develop an argument for how schools must change to meet the demands of democracy; they also present a focused agenda for action. In the first article, "Reframing the School Reform Agenda: Developing Capacity for School Transformation," Linda Darling-Hammond describes how two different paradigms of teaching…

Standards-driven school reform is the national strategy to raise U.S. schools to a world-class level by the year 2000. Schools and school districts must develop plans, that show how to integrate the sets of national goals, standards, and assessments. This paper describes a school-improvement model (SIM) developed by the Gilbert (Iowa) Community…

A perspective is presented for designing instruction in metacognition, drawing on how human beings acquire metacognitive skills and how these skills are interwoven with other thinking skills. An instructional designer must consider the dynamic and integrative nature of metacognition. Traditionally, learning theories, instructional theories, and…