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Constructivism (Learning)

• Constructivism and Multicultural Education: A Mighty Pedagogical Merger
  Examines three ways that constructivism is aligned with multicultural education in formal educational environments: (1) learners organize ideas in unique ways; (2) learners' self-awareness and self-concept influence learning; and (3) a learner's personal history filters new information. (GR).
• Diverse Teacher Candidates' Critiques of Multicultural/Bilingual Teacher Preparation: Insights and Implications
  This study examined California's new system of bilingual and cross cultural teacher preparation, its implementation, and teacher candidates' reception of it. The new system, referred to as (B)CLAD, consists of two credentials for preservice teachers and two certificates for inservice teachers: the Cross Cultural Language and Academic Development, and the Bilingual Crosscultural Language and Academic Development.
• Focus on Elementary (Ages 7-10): A Quarterly Newsletter for the Education Community, 1999-2000
  This document consists of four issues of a newsletter for educators at the elementary level. Each issue features articles on a specific theme along with regular columns.
• Immigration and Pluralism in Urban Catholic Schools
  Investigates how Catholic schools are making the transformation from national to multicultural schools as they meet the needs of new immigrants in the inner city. Focuses on the concept of mediating institutions, investigating urban Catholic school principals' willingness to experience diversity.
• Learner Centered Schools as a Mindset, and the Connection with Mindfulness and Multiculturalism
  After acknowledging that learning and knowing are coconstructed social processes created and shared by teachers and students as learners, the paper examines mindfulness and multiculturalism as learner-centered processes. Mindfulness, multiculturalism, and learner centeredness are interdependent mindsets that encourage interplay between teacher, student, and content and that mediate the classroom environment.
• Multicultural Education from a Pedagogical Perspective: A Response to Radical Critiques
  Critically reviews radical critiques of multicultural education from a pedagogical perspective, revealing agreement between radical and multicultural discourse about transformative pedagogy, exemplifying a body of literature about pedagogical struggles not recognized by radical critics, and encouraging interchange between these groups in regard to critical multicultural education. (Author/SM).
• Multicultural Reasoning and the Appreciation of Art
  Explicates a multicultural approach to art education that enhances critical thinking. Grounds this approach in the philosophical principles of constructivism that emphasize the student's construction of meaning rather than the passive transmission of knowledge from a teacher.
• Multicultural Technology Integration: The Winds of Change Amid the Sands of Time
  This case study describes how a high school language arts teacher in a poor border community in southern New Mexico combined technology-based teaching strategies with multicultural elements to ensure learning and equitable access to technology for her minority students. Discusses bilingual and bicultural students, constructivist classrooms, and instructional flexibility.
• Nations Within. American Indian Scholar Karen Gayton Swisher Envisions Effective Education for All Indian Children
  An interview with American Indian educator Karen Gayton Swisher explores the learning styles of American Indian children and the application of ideas about these learning styles in the programs at Haskell Indian Nations University. Native American children should be taught from a constructivist, rather than a deficit, point of view.
• Teaching the Third Culture Child
  Examines experiences of a 5- and 7-year-old entering a U.S. early childhood program in context of child development theory, constructivist philosophy, and the Japanese social teaching model.
• The Black Hole in Science Ranks
  This paper reviews four decades of research on race and education in Great Britain and discusses the deficit theories of underachievement that serve as the structure of most of the studies. Focus is placed on black youth of Caribbean origin and how they perform in British schools.
• Transforming Classroom Practice. The Best of ASCD's "Update" Newsletters
  A consistent lesson from the literature on school change is that no single method exists for improving schools. In that spirit, this book presents a collection of short articles that address a wide sampling of ideas and trends in educational change.