Constructivist Instruction

Sigmund Tobias is Distinguished Research Scientist at the Institute for Urban and Minority Education and Visiting Professor of Cognitive Studies in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. His scholarly credentials include a long list authored, co-authored, and edited scholarly publications; grants; awards; invited addresses, and conference presentations. In addition, he is one of five former refugees who participated in the documentary film, Shanghai Ghetto, describing how a group of European Jews found safety from the Holocaust in Shanghai, China, during the Second World War, and which which won an Audience Choice Award at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. Tobias returned to Shanghai as a Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Institute of Education, where he began a memoir describing the life of his family in the refugee community in Shanghai. The book was subsequently published as Strange Haven: A Jewish Childhood in Wartime Shanghai.Thomas M. Duffy is the Barbara Jacobs Chair of Education and Technology at Indiana University and the founding director of the Center for Research on Learning and Technology. He is a professor in instructional systems technology and the cognitive science program. His academic career has been dedicated to exploring the design and use of information in education and the workplace. Professor Duffy has written or edited several books and is the author of over 100 papers on learning, performance, and technology. He and his colleagues have also developed the Ready Program (adult literacy instruction), Strategic Teaching Frameworks (multimedia, teacher professional development), and ACT, an asynchronous collaboration tool for small group problem solving.

• Foreword, Robert J. SternbergPrefacePart I. IntroductionChapter 1. The Success or Failure of Constructivist Instruction: An Introduction Sigmund Tobias and Timothy M. DuffyPart II. The Evidence for ConstructivismChapter 2. Reconciling a Human Cognitive ArchitectureDavid JonassenChapter 3. Constructivism in an Age of Non-Constructivist AssessmentsDaniel L. Schwartz, Robb Lindgren, and Sarah LewisChapter 4. Taking Guided Learning Theory to School: Reconciling the Cognitive, Motivational, and Social Contexts of InstructionPhillip Herman and Louis M. GomezChapter 5. Beyond More Versus Less: A Reframing of the Debate on Instructional GuidanceAlyssa Friend Wise and Kevin O’NeillChapter 6. Constructivism: When It's the Wrong Idea and When It's the Only IdeaRand J. Spiro and Michael DeSchryverPart III. Challenges to the Constructivist ViewChapter 7. What Human Cognitive Architecture Tells Us About ConstructivismJohn Sweller Chapter 8. Epistemology or Pedagogy, That Is the QuestionPaul A. KirschnerChapter 9. How Much and What Type of Guidance is Optimal for Learning? Richard E. ClarkChapter 10. Constructivism as a Theory of Learning Versus Constructivism as a Prescription for Instruction.Richard E. Mayer Chapter 11. The Empirical Support for Direct InstructionBarak RosenshinePart IV. An Examination of Specific Learning and Motivational IssuesChapter 12. Learning and Constructivism Walter KintschChapter 13. From Behaviorism to Constructivism: A Philosophical Journey from Drill and Practice to Situated Learning J. D. FletcherChapter 14. What’s Worth Knowing about Mathematics?Melissa Sommerfeld Gresalfi and Frank LesterChapter 15. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens" What about Direct Instruction?David KlahrChapter 16. Beyond the Fringe: Building and Evaluating Scientific Knowledge Systems Richard A. Duschl and Ravit Golan DuncanPart V. Summing UpChapter 17. An Eclectic Appraisal of the Success or Failure of Constructivist InstructionSigmund TobiasChapter 18. Building Lines of Communication and a Research AgendaThomas M. Duffy

"I highly recommend this book to everyone in the field of educational technology, regardless of their "bent" for or against constructivist learning environments."--Educational Technology