Confessions of a born-again constructivist

Abstract

The Anderson et al. (1995) article is seen in the framework of university teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. Three points are made. First, university faculty often view the content of their educational psychology courses as being twice removed from theories of learning and development as developed in the cognitive sciences. Arguments are presented to show that this is a problematic view. Second, it is important to know the nature of prospective teachers' mental models of learning and development before we teach them that content. Research shows that their mental models are different than the psychological models taught in university educational psychology courses. And third, models of how mental models change are needed so that we can engage and embellish prospective teachers' mental models of children's learning in our educational psychology courses.