<div dir="ltr">On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 9:37 AM, Bastien <<a href="mailto:bastienguerry@googlemail.com">bastienguerry@googlemail.com</a>> wrote: <div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Hi Seth and all, <div class="Ih2E3d"> "Seth Woodworth" <<a href="mailto:seth@laptop.org">seth@laptop.org</a>> writes: > Constructionism > > We are developing "Constructionism" as a theory of learning and education. > Constructionism is based on two different senses of "construction." It is > grounded in the idea that people learn by actively constructing new knowledge, > rather than having information "poured" into their heads. Moreover, > constructionism asserts that people learn with particular effectiveness when > they are engaged in constructing personally meaningful artifacts (such as > computer programs, animations, or robots). > > <a href="http://learning.media.mit.edu/projects.html" target="_blank">http://learning.media.mit.edu/projects.html</a> > > I thought that this explination was concise and really interesting.  I would > love to explain this to people who want to desige activities, just to give them > a little snapshot of the concept.  Does anyone have a problem with this > deffinition? Does anyone have an improvement? </div>I don't have any problem with this definition, it captures the spirit of (what I understand from) constructionism. My only concern -- and this is a general concern with the usual rhetoric behind constructionism, not with this definition in particular -- is the way we too often refer to this image: "information poured into heads". While I think it might be useful to use such simplistic images, I also think it might give a false feeling of novelty: as if constructionism was the long awaited solution to save people from this stupid practice in education, the one of "pouring information into heads"... At least Plato argues that knowledge is not about pouring information into heads.  Even Aristotle, who is more of an empiricist, wouldn't deny that _acquiring_ knowledge is about building new "forms" on the top of the ones we have, questioning the world with our own questions. Whether the knowledge is about grasping forms (or "patterns") that _really_ exist outside of the human mind, or building forms that only exist as mere abstractions, learning is seen as an interactive process and as an interactive process of construction.  You could hardly find any philosopher who would defend something like "pouring information into heads", and I challenge anyone to point at teachers who do only that.</blockquote><div> Well said, Bastien > people learn by actively constructing new knowledge, > rather than having information "poured" into their heads I would add that the other end of the statement is also a simplistic caricature,  pure discovery learning on the one  hand,  versus, pure instructionism at the other end. Neither is going to work and no teacher does either once they encounter real world children (snip) </div></div> </div>