ABSTRACT

CONCEPTIONS AND MISCONCEPTIONS OF STUDENT-CENTERED LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Technological advances have stimulated researchers and educators to expand their conceptions of learning as well as the design of learning environments. This renaissance has Balkanized factions of the educational and research communities in their separate pursuits of an epistemological "silver bullet," fueling a lively debate as to the wisdom and appropriateness of competing approaches. For example, traditional instructional approaches have been criticized widely for failing to support higher order thinking and problem solving while cultivating compliant (McCaslin & Good, 1992) and superficial understanding (Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson, & Coulson, 1991). Constructivists have likewise been criticized for allegedly propagating approaches that are unproven, atheoretical, and impractical (Dick, 1991; Merrill, 1991).