Practicing scientists’ views of science recently have become a topic of interest to nature of science researchers. Using an interview protocol developed by Carey and Smith that assumes respondents’ views cohere into a single belief system, we asked 15 research chemists to discuss their views of theories and experimentation. Respondents expressed a range of ideas about science during interviews, but in ways that defied assignment to a unitary, coherent belief system. Instead, scientists expressed more or less constructivist ideas depending upon (...) the questions asked. We interpret our findings to suggest that efforts to categorize such conceptions at best oversimplify, and at worst misconstrue, people’s views about science and how such ideas might develop. (shrink)

A review of the chemical education research literature suggests that the term constructivism is used in two ways: experience-based constructivism and discipline-based constructivism. These two perspectives are examined as an epistemology in relation to the teaching and learning of the concept of idealization in chemistry. It is claimed that experience-based constructivism is powerless to inform the origin of such concepts in chemistry and while discipline-based constructivism can admit such theoretical concepts as idealization it does not offer any unique perspectives that (...) cannot be obtained from other models. Chemical education researchers do not consistently appeal to constructivism as an epistemology or as a teaching/learning perspective and it is shown that, while it draws attention to worthwhile teaching/learning strategies, it cannot be considered as foundational to chemical education research and tends to be used more as an educational label than as an undergirding theory. (shrink)

A review of the chemical education research literature suggests that the term constructivism is used in two ways: experience-based constructivism and discipline-based constructivism. These two perspectives are examined as an epistemology in relation to the teaching and learning of the concept of idealization in chemistry. It is claimed that experience-based constructivism is powerless to inform the origin of such concepts in chemistry and while discipline-based constructivism can admit such theoretical concepts as idealization it does not offer any unique perspectives that (...) cannot be obtained from other models. Chemical education researchers do not consistently appeal to constructivism as an epistemology or as a teaching/learning perspective and it is shown that, while it draws attention to worthwhile teaching/learning strategies, it cannot be considered as foundational to chemical education research and tends to be used more as an educational label than as an undergirding theory. (shrink)

As a growing number of faculty use constructivist and constructionist approaches to teaching in SL, little research exists on the many ethical considerations and legal implications that affect course development. Following the experiences of the instructor and five students, their 12-week journey is documented through interviews, journals, blogs, weekly course activities, SL class dialogs, and in-world assignments. Additionally, five faculty and staff experts who taught or trained in SL at this university were also interviewed and consulted. Ethical considerations in constructivist (...) and constructionist teaching were time, appearance, skills, scaffolded instruction, playful exploration, vicarious experience, self-directed project development, construction of objects, constructivism and constructionism balance, social networking and collaboration, harassment and griefing, false identities and alternate avatars, chat log sharing, and copyright and trademark violations. Lessons learned included developing scaffolded pedagogical approaches that moved from direct teaching to constructivism and constructionism, and required faculty and student adherence to the SL TOS, Community Standards, and Intellectual Property policy. (shrink)