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Full-Text Articles in Education

Constructivism And Instructional Design: Some Personal Reflections, Brent Wilson Mar 2016

Constructivism And Instructional Design: Some Personal Reflections, Brent Wilson

Brent Wilson

Some personal reflections on instructional design and its relation to constructivism are explored. Instructional design in its present form is out of sync with the times in that its orientation, methods, and research base are behavioristic, or positivistic. However, a constructivist theory of instructional design is possible, particularly if constructivism is recognized as a philosophy rather than a strategy. To better fit the needs of practitioners, instructional design theories need to be better grounded in a broad understanding of learning and instructional processes. Generic principles and specific heuristics are needed for dealing with recurring problems and situations in instructional design …


An Integrated Study Of Children's Construction Of Improper Fractions And The Teacher's Role In Promoting That Learning, Ron Tzur Jan 2016

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 …


Distinguishing Two Stages Of Mathematics Conceptual Learning, Ron Tzur, Marty Simon Jan 2016

Distinguishing Two Stages Of Mathematics Conceptual Learning, Ron Tzur, Marty Simon

Ron Tzur

In this theoretical article, we distinguish two stages of learning a new mathematical concept – participatory and anticipatory. We use a recently developed mechanism for explaining mathematical conceptual learning – reflection on activity-effect relationship – as well as von Glasersfeld’s tripartite model of a scheme, to explain qualitative distinctions between the two stages. We use this distinction to explain why instructional interventions (including inquiry-based approaches) may not bring about the intended instructional goals.


Film Literacy In The Primary Classroom, Marc Barrett Jan 2016

Film Literacy In The Primary Classroom, Marc Barrett

Marc Barrett

The recent move in Britain towards a nation-wide film literacy program to support young learners of English prompted ACER research into the use of film within Australian primary schools.


Distinguishing Two Stages Of Mathematics Conceptual Learning, Ron Tzur, Marty Simon Jan 2016

Distinguishing Two Stages Of Mathematics Conceptual Learning, Ron Tzur, Marty Simon

Ron Tzur

In this theoretical article, we distinguish two stages of learning a new mathematical concept – participatory and anticipatory. We use a recently developed mechanism for explaining mathematical conceptual learning – reflection on activity-effect relationship – as well as von Glasersfeld’s tripartite model of a scheme, to explain qualitative distinctions between the two stages. We use this distinction to explain why instructional interventions (including inquiry-based approaches) may not bring about the intended instructional goals.


The Impact Of Group Selection On Student Performance And Satisfaction, Sakthi Mahenthiran, Pamela Rouse Jan 2016

The Impact Of Group Selection On Student Performance And Satisfaction, Sakthi Mahenthiran, Pamela Rouse

Pamela J. Rouse

Investigates whether the performance and attitudes of students could be improved by giving them some control over the group selection process. Groups were formed either by randomly combining paired friends or by randomly assigning all students. Students completed a group exercise and a group case. The dependent variables were the project grades and student satisfaction. Student satisfaction was measured using a questionnaire. The results show that attitudes of students were more positive when they were allowed to choose a single friend in the group. The project grades were significantly higher when students were paired, and this result was true regardless …