The pedagogical paradigms of Direct instruction (behaviorism/objectivism) and Constructivism are often seen as opposing paradigms at the ends of an instructional design continuum. Unfortunately, this view makes the two approaches mutually exclusive. Designers must use the one at the expense of the other. A previous study proposed that the two…

Of all the arguments directed against presenting mathematical topics within a cultural and historical context, the most serious ones are those that we will refer to as the time and the content arguments. In this paper, after briefly describing these stances, we will endeavor to evaluate and refute their rationales using a social constructivist…

Constructivism represents a heterogeneous body of theoretical approaches across different disciplines for these alliances, as well as, attracting and antagonizing vast audiences within these disciplines, including psychology and education. A major influence on the rise of constructivism has been the theory and research in human development.…

Social constructivist principles and ideas are among those most cited in both educational and psychological circles today, and many current scholars and reformers ground their work in social constructivist theories. Yet the basic principles of social constructivism are notoriously difficult for students to understand and grapple with. This article…

Purpose: Critical thinking and student attitudes are pertinent to 21st century learning of cultural values which is still very low. Research with a focus on improving these skills and attitudes using inquiry-based approaches are very limited. This research aimed to improve critical thinking and student attitudes of elementary school teacher…

Background: The study focused on children with hearing disabilities, which was significant as almost 9 million children in sub-Saharan Africa, including Namibia, had hearing disabilities. The problem was the lack of prior research on the effects of assistive technology (AT) in primary education for the Deaf in Namibia, for guiding Namibian special…

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe effective constructivism teaching strategies and approaches for reducing the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students in a middle school gifted program at Stoneybrook Middle School in the Downey-Raine School System through an examination of the lived…

In this theoretical paper, I review the history of research in educational psychology that inspired Shulman's notion of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and I critically examine interpretations of PCK reflected in prominent theoretical frameworks for mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT). I propose a theory of PCK--grounded in radical…

The objectives of the research were to (1) design an instructional model based on Connectivism and Constructivism to create innovation in real world experience, (2) assess the model designed--the designed instructional model. The research involved 2 stages: (1) the instructional model design and (2) the instructional model rating. The sample…

The Singapore government has launched kindergarten curriculum reform since 2003 to promote constructivism in teaching and learning, which seems to contradict the traditional pedagogy. Using video analysis, we examined the actual classroom dialogue in six Chinese language classrooms to understand to what extent the constructivist pedagogy has been…

This paper aims to interpret the lived experience of Indonesian universities' leaders in order to offer a new way of understanding leadership and exercising leadership in higher education. Heidegger's Hermeneutic Phenomenological approach is used to capture the real experience of those leaders in demonstrating how they live and exercise a…

The notion of social justice has been addressed from the perspective of 'ethical realism' and 'ethical anarchistic'. Here, however, the possibility of 'ethical constructivism' becomes formulated. With departure in Rawls' description of an idealised meeting defining social justice, the initial steps into ethical constructivism become taken.…

This article examines the literature associated with social constructivism. It discusses whether social constructivism succeeds in reconciling individual cognition with social teaching and learning practices. After reviewing the meaning of individual cognition and social constructivism, two views--Piaget and Vygotsky's--accounting for learning…

To what extent do higher education regulators and quality agencies need to assess the level of scholarship in universities and other higher education providers? To answer this question, we need to address the following issues: What is scholarship and why does it need to be upheld? Does it feature in higher education quality standards and codes,…

The authors explored how art centers for people with disabilities -- a form of day program -- could collaborate with art museums to create inclusive and integrated programming with artists from the broader community. Museums are in a particularly salient period of a paradigm shift, becoming more socially responsive and considering audience…