Constructivism has become the reigning paradigm in teacher education in America today. More and more teacher education programs portray themselves as following a constructivist approach (Richardson, 1997), but there remains limited understanding among teachers and the public of the meaning of constructivism. Recently constructivism has come under attack from con-servative elements who view it as too focused on empowerment, and from educators who view it as soft on content (Baines and Stanley, 2000). A deeper understanding of constructivism and the role of content in constructivist teaching is needed by both teacher educators and K-12 teachers in order to fulfill the constructivist promise of improved student learning.

Purpose: This study aims to address the possibility of integrating some elements of the “radical constructivist” approach to management accounting teaching. It answers the following two questions: to what extent should management accounting educators construct a “radical constructivist” foundation to guide active learning? Then, in which ways can management accounting educators use qualitative methods to facilitate “radical constructivist” education? Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a teaching cycle that implements innovative learning elements, e.g. learning from ordinary people, designed following the principles of “radical constructivism”, to engage students with “externalities” at the centre of their knowledge construction. It adopts an ethnographic approach comprising interviews and participant observation for the data collection, followed by the application of qualitative content and narrative analysis of the data. Findings: The study findings and reflections illustrate that the majority of students respond positively to radical constructivist learning if the educators can develop an innovative problem-solving and authentic environment that is close to their real lives. The radical constructivist teaching cycle discussed in this study has challenged the mindsets of the management accounting students as it altered the traditional objectivist academic learning approaches that students were familiar with. Its use of qualitative methods facilitated active learning. Student feedback was sought as part of the qualitative design, which provided a constructive mechanism for the students and educators to learn and unlearn from their mistakes. This process enriched the understanding of learners (students) and educators of successful engagement in radical constructivist management accounting education and provides a base upon which to design future teaching cycles. Originality/value – The paper provides proof of the ability of accounting educators, as change agents, to apply radical constructivist epistemology combined with multiple qualitative research methods by creating new constructive learning structures and cultures associated with innovative deep-learning tasks in management accounting education.

Key words: radical constructivism, deep learning, , qualitative methodology, teaching cycle, management accounting education.

Context: Under the title “Ask von Glasersfeld,” for 13 years the Oikos web site offered the opportunity to questioners to pose any type of query directly to Ernst von Glasersfeld. Purpose: Based on the collected questions and answers gathered on the web site, this series of four articles re-presents and highlights key aspects of von Glasersfeld’s life’s work constructing his model of radical constructivism. Method: The question-answer pairs are grouped into eight categories. Because the selected contents are so extensive, these eight categories are presented in a series of four articles, of which this is the second and which deals with with von Glasersfeld’s views on human experience. The material is divided into two main themes: the first deals with his views on “experiential reality” and the second deals with the issue of “learning.” Results: One of von Glasersfeld’s main objectives was to define clearly that which we can rationally claim to know. As part of this task, in the first section of this article he deals with the question of how we go about constructing our personal experiential reality. The second part deals with his views on how to apply practically the tenets of radical constructivism in a variety of fields. He is especially interested in redefining what “learning” means and in creating novel approaches to teaching and training students. Implications: This re-presentation of von Glasersfeld’s ideas offers an easily accessible resource for people of all levels of understanding who are seeking to deepen their appreciation of his work. One can come to appreciate not only the lucidity of his writings but also glean “insights” into the person himself, who can be glimpsed between the lines of these various interactions.

Key words: experiential reality, experiential interface, rational knowing, mysticism, constructivist teaching & training

Open peer commentary on the article “Learning How to Innovate as a Socio-epistemological Process of Co-creation: Towards a Constructivist Teaching Strategy for Innovation” by Markus F. Peschl, Gloria Bottaro, Martina Hartner-Tiefenthaler & Katharina Rötzer. Upshot: I introduce and discuss an advancement of the idea of “learning from the future,” called “interacting with the envisioned future.” Further, this approach is put into the context of the target article and the perspective of radical constructivism.

Discusses how the constructivist approach to learning can aid in helping students to experience more meaningful learning. Discusses cooperative group learning and the concept of constructivism; constructivist teaching formats; and whether the constructivist approach works.

The subject “energy of chemical reactions” has been referred/reported as a theme in which the students demonstrate several difficulties of an adequate understanding (Johnstone, 1980; Finley, Stewart and Yarroch, 1982; Granville, 1985; Lawrenz, 1987; Shaibu, 1988). Some alternative conceptions in this area have been identified and are discribed (Cachapuz and Martins, 1987; Martins, 1989). For example, high school students may think that in some chemical reactions one of the reactants may play a more important role than the other(s), the so called “principal reactant” (PR) (Cachapuz and Martins, 1988). The idea of “principal reactant” is probably a specific case of a more general difficulty on the part of students in perceiving a chemical system in its entirety and it may be considered as a contemporary version of the duality between the sulphur and mercury principles used by 13th century Alchemists to explain natural phenomena. As referred by historians of science (Caron and Hutin, 1964) the sulphur principle would explain the active and warm properties of materials (hence the idea of “principal reactant”) whereas the mercury principle would explain passive and cold attributes.

Key words: concept formation, teacher education, philosophy, concept formation, misconceptions, concept teaching, teaching for conceptual change, constructivist teaching, constructivism

This article indicates something of the enormous influence of constructivism on contemporary science education. The article distinguishes educational constructivism (that has its origins in theories of children’s learning), from constructivism in the philosophy of science (usually associated with instrumentalist views of scientific theory), and from constructivism in the sociology of science (of which the Edinburgh Strong Programme in the sociology of scientific knowledge is the best known example). It notes the expansion of educational constructivism from initial considerations of how children come to learn, to views about epistemology, educational theory, ethics, and the cognitive claims of science. From the learning-theory beginnings of constructivism, and at each stage of its growth, philosophical questions arise that deserve the attention of educators. Among other things, the article identifies some theoretical problems concerning constructivist teaching of the content of science.

Over the previous two decades the emergence of post-modernist thought (i.e., radical constructivism, social constructivism, deconstructivsm, post-structuralism, and the like) on the American intellectual landscape has presented a number of challenges to various fields of intellectual endeavor (i.e., literature, natural science, and social science) (Matthews, 1998; in press). Nowhere is this challenge more evident and therefore more problematic than in the application of post-modernism (in the form of constructivist teaching) to the classroom. Employing constructivist teaching practices is problematic at two levels: (1) there is an absence of empirical evidence of effectiveness; and (2) employing this approach for which there is a lack of evidential support, means not employing instructional practices for which there is empirical support. The purpose of this article is to present an overview and critique of constructivist teaching practices, followed by a brief review of evidenced-based practices in teaching.

Excerpt: In this introduction, I explore the constructivist teaching fallacy by drawing on a distinction between high cognitive activity during learning (which according to constructivist learning theory leads to deeper learning) and high behavioral activity during learning (which according to a constructivist teaching theory leads to deeper learning). Second, the chapter reviews exemplary research on when active instructional methods lead to passive cognitive learning (i.e., high behavioral activity and low cognitive activity), including ways that discovery methods can fail. Third, the chapter reviews exemplary research concerning when passive instructional methods lead to active cognitive learning (i.e., low behavioral activity and high cognitive activity), including ways of designing multimedia lessons that promote active learning. Overall, constructivism can be successful as a theory of active learning but not as a prescription for active instruction.

Various studies show a positive impact of living animals on motivation as well as knowledge acquisition in biology lessons (e.g. Wilde & Bätz, 2009). The learning success was thereby accredited to a possibly more constructivist learning environment. In this study we examine whether the use of living harvest mice really facilitates a more constructivist learning environment (Reinmann & Mandl, 2006). It is to be expected that the use of living animals particularly improves situational, active and emotional learning. The sample of this study consists of 121 6th graders of two secondary schools (Gymnasium) in North Rhine Westphalia. The experimental group was taught with living harvest mice whereas the control group received short movies on laptops. In addition to a questionnaire, which was used to measure constructivist teaching characteristics (PgK, Urhahne, Marsch, Wilde & Krüger, 2011), a pre-, post- and follow-up test was carried out to control the knowledge gain. Surprisingly, not only the subscales “situational”, “active” and “emotional” turn out in favour of the experimental group, but all subscales of the PgK. Regarding knowledge acquisition, the hypothesis is confirmed by the results of the follow-up test.