Education Commons^™

Role-Playing As A Tool To Facilitate Learning, Self Reflection And Social Awareness In Teacher Education, Peter W. Kilgour, Daniel Reynaud, Maria T. Northcote, Marion Shields

Maria Northcote

Meaningful learning in the tertiary sector benefits from the inclusion of a variety of teaching and learning techniques including active learning. Role-plays are one type of active and participatory learning activity that creates interaction between students and a simulated scenario. This reality can serve to open the minds of participants to issues they need to be able to deal with in their chosen careers. This paper reports role-plays in four different learning applications: the first was in a multicultural education class and simulated a microcosm of society where students took on the roles of minority groups. The second reports on …

Role-Playing As A Tool To Facilitate Learning, Self Reflection And Social Awareness In Teacher Education, Peter W. Kilgour, Daniel Reynaud, Maria T. Northcote, Marion Shields

Peter Kilgour

Meaningful learning in the tertiary sector benefits from the inclusion of a variety of teaching and learning techniques including active learning. Role-plays are one type of active and participatory learning activity that creates interaction between students and a simulated scenario. This reality can serve to open the minds of participants to issues they need to be able to deal with in their chosen careers. This paper reports role-plays in four different learning applications: the first was in a multicultural education class and simulated a microcosm of society where students took on the roles of minority groups. The second reports on …

Role-Playing As A Tool To Facilitate Learning, Self Reflection And Social Awareness In Teacher Education, Peter W. Kilgour, Daniel Reynaud, Maria T. Northcote, Marion Shields

Daniel Reynaud

Meaningful learning in the tertiary sector benefits from the inclusion of a variety of teaching and learning techniques including active learning. Role-plays are one type of active and participatory learning activity that creates interaction between students and a simulated scenario. This reality can serve to open the minds of participants to issues they need to be able to deal with in their chosen careers. This paper reports role-plays in four different learning applications: the first was in a multicultural education class and simulated a microcosm of society where students took on the roles of minority groups. The second reports on …

The Social Media Instructional Design Model: A New Tool For Designing Instruction Using Social Media, Quincy Conley, Kent E. Sabo

Quincy Conley

Social media is a pervasive force in the lives of 21^st century learners. Social media offers a user experience that encourages students to create and share new content while enabling communication unlike any other learning technology. In this paper, we explore how learning with social media could be more effective by leveraging appropriate learning theory and instructional design. We begin with examples of how social media is currently being used in educational contexts, and then review the available research that investigates the connections between social media and education. To understand how social media may be better utilized for learning, …

The Tenure Decision: A Readers Theater On Constructivism, Brent Wilson, Stevem Smith

Brent Wilson

This script, which portrays a discussion by a five-person committee about whether to grant tenure to faculty member, is a vehicle for discussing the meanings of scholarship and standards, the nature of truth and realism, and the constructivist view of learning. The argument about the quality of the faculty member's scholarship leads into a consideration of whether she is being judged by white male standards. The discussion evolves into a consideration of realist philosophy, the meaning of truth, and the prevalence of a dialogical coherence philosophy. The construction of meaning is explored briefly before the characters adjourn to consider the …

Explicating A Mechanism For Conceptual Learning: Elaborating The Construct Of Reflective Abstraction, Marty Simon, Ron Tzur, Karen Heinz, Margaret Kinzel

Ron Tzur

We articulate and explicate a mechanism for mathematics conceptual learning that can serve as a basis for the design of mathematics lessons. The mechanism, reflection on activity-effect relationships, addresses the learning paradox (Pascual-Leone, 1976), a paradox that derives from careful attention to the construct of assimilation (Piaget, 1970). The mechanism is an elaboration of Piaget's (2001) reflective abstraction and is potentially useful for addressing some of the more intractable problems in teaching mathematics. Implications of the mechanism for lesson design are discussed and exemplified.

Characterizing A Perspective Underlying The Practice Of Mathematics Teachers In Transition, Marty Simon, Ron Tzur, Karen Heinz, Margaret Kinzel, Margaret Smith

Ron Tzur

We postulate a construct, perception-based perspective, that we consider to be fundamental to the practices of many teachers currently participating in mathematics education reform in the United States. The postulation of the construct resulted from analyses of data from teaching experiments in teacher education classes with a combined group of prospective and practicing teachers and from case studies with individuals from that group. A perception-based perspective is grounded in a view of mathematics as a connected, logical, and universally accessible part of an ontological reality. From this perspective, learning mathematics with understanding requires learners' direct (firsthand) perception of relevant mathematical …

An Integrated Study Of Children's Construction Of Improper Fractions And The Teacher's Role In Promoting That Learning, Ron Tzur

Ron Tzur

In this constructivist teaching experiment with 2 fourth graders I studied the coemergence of teaching and children's construction of a specific conception that supports the generation of improper fractions. The children's posing and solving tasks in a computer microworld promoted a modification in their fraction schemes. They advanced from thinking about a unit fraction as a part of a whole to thinking about it as standing in a multiplicative relationship with a reference whole (the iterative fraction scheme). In this article I report an intertwined analysis of the children's construction of this multiplicative relationship and an examination of the teacher's …

Implementing Augmented Reality In The Classroom, Douglas R. Miller, Tonia A. Dousay

Tonia A. Dousay

Constructive Alignment And The Curriculum: A Call For Improved Pedagogical Practices In Higher Education, Kerwin A. Livingstone

Kerwin A. Livingstone

From the turn of the century, there have been fervent calls to reform the curriculum in such a way that all students benefit. In light of heated debates, ‘constructivism’ was embraced as the new learning theory that would cause an improvement in student learning outcomes. Much later, ‘constructive alignment’ emerged, which sought to revolutionise the curriculum, significantly modifying pedagogical practices. Consequently, this article seeks to address constructive alignment in the curriculum and the urgent need to improve didactic practices in higher education. To this end, a discussion ensues on the curriculum and its necessity in pedagogy. The different approaches to …

Interactive Learning Environment: Engaging Students Using Clickers, Carol Sternberger

Carol S Sternberger

Educators continue to search for effective methods that will engage students in their learning. This article presents the integration of clickers while using the constructivist approach to foster critical thinking wile engaging learners in a large classroom setting. A 22-item survey was used to measure the perceived value by students to the use of clickers in engaging them in the learning process and fostering critical thinking. Clickers, also known as personal response systems, created an interactive environment, moving students beyond simple recall to application, analysis, and construction of knowledge.

The Mathematics Of Skateboarding: A Relevant Application Of The 5es Of Constructivism, William H. Robertson

William H. Robertson

Misconceptions About “Misconceptions”: Preservice Secondary Science Teachers’ Views On The Value And Role Of Student Ideas., Douglas B. Larkin

Douglas B. Larkin

Integrating Mathematical Modeling For Undergraduate Pre-Service Science Education Learning And Instruction In The Middle School Classroom, William H. Robertson, David Carrejo

William H. Robertson

El Paso is a bicultural, bilingual community with a 76.6% Hispanic population. Combining El Paso’s population with that of its sister city, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, our community is the largest metropolitan area on any international border in the world. Students at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) are mostly female, and 50% of the total student population is made up of first-generation college students. These demographics are accompanied by low socioeconomic and educational factors: 23.6% of local families live below the poverty level, compared to 12.5% nationally; 32.9% of 25-year-olds have not graduated from high school; 19% of …

A Constructivist Approach To Professional Development In Ict Leadership: Creating A Learning Community, Renata Phelps

Dr Renata Phelps

Management of ICT has emerged as a critical issue for schools and one which is impacting significantly on the work of principals and other senior staff. Theory, knowledge, information and even ideas relating specifically to ICT management in school contexts is not yet readily available. Much of the most valuable knowledge and information can be found in the day-to-day experiences and theorising of practitioners. This paper describes the constructivist approach being taken to ICT management through a particular unit in a postgraduate level professional development course at Southern Cross University. It is argued that engaging educational leaders in constructivist learning …