The Constructivist Learning Environment Survey is an instrument used for assessing students' and teachers' perceptions of their learning environments. The Teacher Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (TCLES) was created to better enable teachers and researchers to determine teachers' perception of their use of constructivist approaches in…

Increasingly in elementary schools, there has been a focus on the influence of school-level factors on students' learning. The way in which the learning environment is organised in schools and classrooms is likely to influence students' opportunities to carry out inquiry. Most studies have focused on the effects of the amount of schooling, rather…

This autoethnography provides insights into the experiences of a first-year elementary school principal that led to a change in leadership style from an authoritarian style to a transformational leader. Discusses changes in the school to a more positive climate that had a more positive effect on learning and working environments. (Author/LRW)

Considers the problem of how to track a student's real progress in learning and evaluates the success of concept mapping in constructing a learning environment in a Finnish primary school. Highlights include the semiotic paradigm developed by Charles Sanders Peirce; and results of a longitudinal study. (Author/LRW)

Describes a study assessing factors for developing a safer environment in an urban elementary school. Found that teachers wanted more student support, more resources, and less work pressure; that work conservation strategies to decrease work pressure led to student aggression; that teacher reluctance to share resources created more behavior…

Describes the development of the Classroom Systems Observation Scale (CSOS), which assesses preschool through sixth grade classroom functioning from a systems perspective using a theoretical framework based on the Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems. Discusses influences of home environment and parental support on learning; and…

Describes how students, parents, and teachers identified specific characteristics of a classroom learning environment that provided a scaffold for first graders to engage in science inquiry. Discusses the physical environment, material resources, social interactions, intrapersonal habits of engagement in learning, and the co-participation by…

In spite of the widespread adoption of policies on mainstreaming, and more recently on inclusive education for children and young people with special educational needs, little is actually known about the relationship between what teachers think about such policies and the type of learning environments that they provide. In this study in New…