| Over the past two decades two significant trends have begun to impact teacher education in North America and in Europe. One trend is the increasing use of information technologies in education, including teacher education, and the other is the growing interest in student-centered/constructivist learning. Student-centered learning, including constructivist approaches to teaching and learning in K-12 classrooms, such as anchored instruction, situated cognition, and problem-based learning, is more common today than even a few years ago. In teacher education, constructivist approaches such as reflective practice have also been influential. Constructivism is, however, an emerging rather than a dominant paradigm in both K-12 education and teacher education. The majority of teachers probably know very little about the constructivist paradigm and its implications for classroom practice. That is also true of technology in the classroom.; The focus of this dissertation was the creation of an instructional package that uses technology to introduce preservice and inservice teachers to both the theory and the practical teaching and learning implications of constructivism. The instructional package created was a World Wide Web site: The Constructivist Educator's Page. It provides useful instructional resources for integrating technology into constructivist teaching practices. It provides a variety of lesson ideas, examples of projects, overviews of theories and concepts, and other practical resources.; Both social and cognitive constructivist theories of learning were used as the theoretical framework for the content of the Constructivist Educator's Page. The Recursive, Reflective, Design, and Development (R2D2) instructional design model guided the process of design and development. The development team consisted of (a) experts in instructional design, constructivist theory, technology, and teacher education, (b) instructors and undergraduate and graduate students in educational computing courses for preservice teachers, and (c) other stakeholders. The team was involved in evaluating and recommending changes in components and versions of the product throughout the entire design and development process.; Two general principles guided the creation process: recursion and reflective practice. The product was developed through several phases of creation: component development, single path prototype, alpha version and beta version. Throughout the process formative evaluations were conducted involving experts appraisals and student tryouts. Data was obtained via interviews, discussions, observations, surveys, and debriefings after tryouts as well as from critiques by experts and potential users. The data was fed back into the design and development process to guide revision and redesign. Across the process, progressively more refined and finished versions of the site emerged. At the end of the study, the Constructivist Educator's Page was judged by experts and potential end-users to be a valuable and useful site for educators seeking information on both the theories of constructivism and the practical professional implications of the theory. |
