This paper proposed the application of the constructivist approach in virtual university where learners can learn based on their learning style, information and skills to succeed in life and also in their job. Constructivist learning and the strategies in constructivist learning can foster in-depth learning and practical application. Integration of communication and information technologies into curricula offers significant potentials for designing new learning environments, and advancing research and development in learning theories. Based on the main aspects of the constructivist approach, traditional universities and classroom cannot provide the conditions for learners to construct the knowledge for themselves, for this reason virtual university with the communication and information technologies (ICT) can implement constructivist strategies in the process of teaching and learning. In virtual university, constructivism promotes the learner’s skills to solve real-life problems and practical problems.

Key words: virtual university, constructivist learning, constructivist approach in virtual university.

In the following text I propose a certain view of historiography of philosophy. My starting point will be the analysis of Richard Rorty regarding the historiography of philosophy. The first part will discuss Rorty’s text and the differences between various ways of approaching the history of philosophy. Rorty’s text is important because it reveals a lack of unitary vision when we are speaking about the best way in which we can write history of philosophy. This lack of unity implies that there are different frames of thinking historiography so we are entitled to say that the clashes between visions constitutes a whole new area of inquiry which we can call “the philosophy of historiography.” The following step is to distinguish the philosophy of historiography from the philosophy of history. We will see then, that one of the most important questions of philosophy of historiography is: what is philosophy? Before we start writing the history of philosophy, we should ask ourselves what is our view about the nature of philosophy. Following the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, my view is that philosophy is essentially “the art of creating concepts.” Viewing the philosophy in this way implies that the history of philosophy is a history of concepts. Since the concepts are constructed entities, and not discovered things, it follows that viewing the history of philosophy in this way, forces us to adopt a constructivist approach.

Key words: historiography of philosophy, philosophy of historiography, philosophy of history, constructivism, art of concept creation

The intended study is to reveal the importance of values in the process of constructing our implicit knowledge. There is a strong connection between emotions and knowledge and this relationship appears especially in the process of evaluation. Our approach describes knowledge as more intuitive and emotional and unconscious than is traditionally proclaimed. It serves especially practical and useful purpose and our former experience is its foundation. As we evaluate the world which we get to know, our system of knowledge contains also its meaning for us, our value system is hidden in it and it influences our further conduct. Our activity is the aim of our life, through which we cause changes in the world as well as in us.

Key words: value, evaluation, implicit knowledge, constructivism, emotions, knowledge, activity.

Constructivist teaching is based on constructivist learning theory. This theoretical framework is based on the belief that learning occurs through what a student already knows; this prior knowledge is called a schema. Because all learning should pass through the filter of the pre-existing schemata, constructivists suggest that learning is best accomplished when a student gets actively engaged in the learning process rather than attempting to receive knowledge passively with the teacher avoiding most direct instruction and attempting to lead the student through questions and activities to discover, discuss, appreciate and verbalize the new knowledge (Richards et.al., 2001). Technology is increasingly gaining attention of those who are obsessed with improving teaching and learning. In this research attempts has been made to describe and analyze elementary teachers’ perceptions of using technology as a means for implementing classroom constructivist activities. Doing this, private schools were chosen were every classroom was equipped with a PC for the teacher as well as students. The PCs were networked so that all students could interact with the teacher and other students independently or as a group. Data was gathered through questionnaires from both teachers and students. Findings of the study show that teachers intend to look at the technology provided as an effective tools for developing constructivist practices and for gaining students’ interest. Students are given free rein to be in charge of learning experiences. This method initiates an active and positive learning environment that is technology based, including teamwork while maintaining independence where necessary, which is safe and avoids the anti-motivation effects of being judged. The results show that teachers reported an increase of test scores.

Key words: constructivist education, leadership, technology in education, technology integration

Our study underlines the specific study object, the specific normativity and the specific research methodology for constructivist pedagogy. he specific study object of constructivist pedagogy constitutes the difference between the inner system of the one who learns and the external environment objective, natural, community, cultural, civic, political, religious etc., at which the pupil refers to subjectively. The specific normativity of constructivist pedagogy engages four central principles: a) the principle of self-preserving the trainee’s resources; b) the principle of the subjective reporting of the educated to the objective reality; c) the principle of the viable, efficient pedagogic activity / action; d) the principle of subjective valorizing of the objective reality.

Key words: constructivist pedagogy, normativity, research methodology.

Unlike traditional approach, constructivists view the learner as the active participant of the learning process. Constructivist instructors’ main concern is providing the learners with learning environments in which they can engage in meaningful interactions. So, classrooms should be designed in such a way that the learners interpret and construct meaning based on their own experiences. Creation of rich learning environments via available technologies supporting constructivist learning platforms can be achieved through employing instructional strategies apt to the contextual variables. Teachers’ new role is integrating technology into the curriculum so that learners build on their own experiences, construct their own meanings, create products, and solve problems successfully.

Key words: technology, constructivist classroom, instruction, curriculum.

This study analyzes the optimization of the cognitive map, as knowledge and understanding tool that complies with constructivist paradigm. The experiment carried out on a group of subjects, formed of students – future teachers within the University of Craiova has shown the advantages and disadvantages of the cognitive map in studying some of the subjects enclosed in the curriculum plan of the teaching training module. The results obtained by the students of the experimental group confirmed the research objectives and hypotheses. We succeeded in demonstrating the fact that using this tool in the activities developed with students contributes to the optimization of their school results. As well, it has also been confirmed the connection between the optimization of activities in pairs or small groups, based on collaboration, in a faster understanding of concepts of scientific contents and in solving some misunderstandings that the students had related to these contents. The results obtained lead at the same time to new perspectives in studying this subject related to academic learning.

Key words: teaching, constructivist paradigm, teaching-educative alternative, graphic organizers, cognitive map, independent activity, activity based on collaboration.

This study aims to state primary school teachers’ beliefs towards constructivist learning practices. The study group of this research is consisted of 220 primary school teachers. “The Specification Scale of Teachers’ Beliefs towards Constructivist Learning Practices” is used for data collection in this study. The results of the research suggest that the teachers have positive beliefs towards constructivist learning practices. Teachers’ beliefs do not show significant difference in terms of the type of graduate school and professional seniority. In addition, teachers’ gender does not make any difference except activity dimesion on the other hand the location of the school where they are work has led to significant difference just for practice dimension.

Key words: constructivist approach, constructivist curriculum, constructivist learning practices, teachers views.

In this paper, a new, non-psychological and non-sociological approach to understanding creativity is proposed. The approach is based on autopoietic system theory, where an autopoietic system is defined as a unity whose organization is defined by a particular network of production processes of elements. While the theory was originally proposed in biology and then applied to sociology, I have applied it to understand the nature of creation, and called it “Creative Systems Theory”. A creative system is an autopoietic system whose element is “discovery”, which emerges only when a synthesis of three selections has occurred: “idea”, “association”, and “consequence”. With using these concepts, we open the way to understand creation itself separated from psychic and social aspects of creativity. On this basis, the coupling between creative, psychic, and social systems is discussed. I suggest, in this paper, the future of creativity studies, re-defining a discipline “Creatology” for inquiring creative systems and propose an interdisciplinary field as “Creative Sciences” for interdisciplinary connections among creatology, psychology, and so on.

This research review the effectiveness of teaching module based on radical constructivism towards rural students in Sabah. This research uses embedded design (quasi experimental and case studies). Researcher use 70 students as are sample who were chosen by purposive and matching sampling. A total of 35 students were chosen as the treatment group and the rest as are control group. Researchers develop teaching modules for Geography subject based on radical constructivism known as Geography Teaching Module CSAA to overcome the rural students’ learning problem. The teaching module consists of three main phases which are cognitive scheme; assimilation and accommodation used as intervention to the treatment group. Meanwhile, the control groups were taught using the teacher-centered approach. Data were collected through pre and post tests, observations and document analysis conducted by the researcher. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) showed that there was no difference in post test scores for the control and treatment group of low cognitive level. Meanwhile, analysis of variance (ANOVA) for medium and high cognitive level showed significant difference between the two groups. The findings show that the use of Geography Teaching Module CSAA can improve students’ thinking skills. The implementation of Geography Teaching Module CSAA could increase thinking skills as the use of student-centered approach to encourage students to participate actively in the discovery of knowledge (qualitative data).

Key words: constructivism radical, teaching module csaa, mixed methods, cognitive scheme, assimilation, accommodation.