Situating Constructionism

constructionism papert constructivism e-learning theory learning education

25 Mar 16

Joan Figueroa

Constructionism--the N word as opposed to the V word--shares constructivism's connotation of learning as "building knowledge structures" irrespective of the circumstances of the learning.
the project was not done and dropped but continued for many weeks. It allowed time to think, to dream, to gaze, to get a new idea and try it and drop it or persist, time to talk, to see other people's work and their reaction to yours--not unlike mathematics as it is for the mathematician, but quite unlike math as it is in junior high school.
soap-sculpture math."
The simplest definition of constructionism evokes the idea of learning-by-making and this is what was taking place when the students worked on their soap sculptures. But there is also a line of descent from the style idea. The metaphor of a painter I used in describing one of the styles of programmer observed at the Lamplighter school is developed in Chapter 9 by Turkle and Papert in two perspectives. One ("bricolage") takes its starting point in strategies for the organization of work: The painter-programmer is guided by the work as it proceeds rather than staying with a pre-established plan. The other takes off from a more subtle idea which we call "closeness to objects"--that is, some people prefer ways of thinking that keep them close to physical things, while others use abstract and formal means to distance themselves form concrete material. Both of these aspects of style are very relevant to the idea of constructionism. The example of children building a snake suggests ways of working in which those who like bricolage and staying close to the object can do as well as those who prefer a more analytic formal style.

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23 Mar 16

Ariane Skapetis

ideas@play: Constructionist ideas are deeply rooted in play & tinkering #LEGOidea2016 https://t.co/Lo2KYDJMlZ https://t.co/tJDxwDYGQa

LEGOidea2016

24 Jan 16

Jill Dawson

constructionism papert education learning constructivism theory e-learning

02 Jan 16

Krissa Swain

ed_tech seymour_papert constructionism instructionism

Seymour Papert and Idit Harel's book Constructionism (Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1991)
Instructionism vs. constructionism looks like a split about strategies for education: two ways of thinking about the transmission of knowledge. But behind this there is a split that goes beyond the acquisition of knowledge to touch on the nature of knowledge and the nature of knowing. There is a huge difference in status between these two splits. The first is, in itself, a technical matter that belongs in an educational school course on "methods." The second is what ought properly to be called "e;epistemological."e; It is close to fundamental issues that philosophers think of as their own. It raises issues that are relevant to the nature of science and to the deepest debates in psychology. It is tangled with central issues of radical thinking in feminism, in Africanism, and in other areas where people fight for the right not only to think what they please, but to think it in their own ways.
The crucial thesis of "Epistemological Pluralism" is that while computers are often seen as supporting the abstract and impersonal detached kinds of knowing (which have drawn fire from feminists), computational thinking and practice has been shifting in the opposite direction towards a potential synergy with the feminist position.

constructionism papert learning

08 Dec 15

Amanda Lucas

It is easy enough to formulate simple catchy versions of the idea of constructionism; for example, thinking of it as "learning-by-making." One purpose of this introductory chapter is to orient the reader toward using the diversity in the volume to elaborate--to construct--a sense of constructionism much richer and more multifaceted, and very much deeper in its implications, than could be conveyed by any such formula.

My little play on the words construct and constructionism already hints at two of these multiple facets--one seemingly "serious" and one seemingly "playful." The serious facet will be familiar to psychologists as a tenet of the kindred, but less specific, family of psychological theories that call themselves contructivist. Constructionism--the N word as opposed to the V word--shares constructivism's connotation of learning as "building knowledge structures" irrespective of the circumstances of the learning. It then adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it's a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe.
constructionism boils down to demanding that everything be understood by being constructed
The simplest definition of constructionism evokes the idea of learning-by-making and this is what was taking place when the students worked on their soap sculptures.

29 Nov 15

Catherine Cronin

by Papert & Harel

papert education learning constructivism

19 Nov 15

Richard Scullin

"Papert"

22 Aug 15

Catherine Lombardozzi

constructionism papert education theory learning constructivism e-learning

11 Nov 14

bjoernl

two of these multiple facets--one seemingly "serious" and one seemingly "playful."
Constructionism--the N word as opposed to the V word--shares constructivism's connotation of learning as "building knowledge structures"
"learning-by-making."
adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it's a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe.
construct--a sense of constructionism much richer and more multifaceted, and very much deeper in its implications,
I must confine myself to engage you in experiences (including verbal ones) liable to encourage your own personal construction of something in some sense like it
Only in this way will there be something rich enough in your mind to be worth talking about.
it would be particularly oxymoronic to convey the idea of constructionism through a definition
constructionism boils down to demanding that everything be understood by being constructed
I have no argument like what is supposed to happen in formal logic where each step leads a depersonalized mind inexorably along a pre-set path.
we can come to agreement about theories of learning (at least for the present and perhaps in principle) only by groping in our disorderly bags of tricks and tools for the wherewithal to build understandings
I might appear in the previous paragraph to be talking about accepting or rejecting constructionism as a matter of "taste and preference" rather than a matter of "scientific truth."
distinction needs to be made
science may one day show that there is a "best way,"
individuals might prefer to think in their own way rather than in the "best way."
weak claim is that it suits some people better than other modes of learning currently being used.
strong claim is that it is better for everyone than the prevalent "instructionist" modes practiced in schools.
ariant of the strong claim is that this is the only framework that has been proposed that allows the full range of intellectual styles and preferences to each find a point of equilibrium.
To give a sense of the methodology of this early "pre-paradigmatic" stage I shall tell some stories about incidents that fed the early evolution of the idea.
watch students working on soap sculptures and mused about ways in which this was not like a math class. In the math class students are generally given little problems which they solve or don't solve pretty well on the fly. In this particular art class they were all carving soap,
"soap-sculpture math."
Fantasy and science and math were coming together, uneasily still, but pointing a way. LEGO/Logo is limited as a build-an-animal-kit;
everyone had space ships they did not make them the same way.
Some programmed their space ships as if they had read a book on "structured programming," in the top-down style of work that proceeds through careful planning to organize the work and by making subprocedures for every part under the hierarchical control of a superprocedure
The painter-programmer would put a red blob on the screen and call over her friends (for it was more often, though not always, a girl) to admire the shuttle. After a while someone might say: "But its red, the shuttle is white." "Well, that's the fire!"--came the reply--"Now I'll make the white body." And so the shuttle would grow, taking shape through a kind of negotiation between the programmer and the work in progress.
such incidents initiated an intense interest in differences in ways of doing things
simplest definition of constructionism evokes the idea of learning-by-making
some people prefer ways of thinking that keep them close to physical things, while others use abstract and formal means to distance themselves form concrete material. Both of these aspects of style are very relevant to the idea of constructionism.
The chapters in this book offer many constructions of new learning-rich activities with an attempt to reach that quality.
A conceptually simple case is the addition of new elements to LEGO construction kits and to the Logo microworlds, so that children can build more "active" models.
illustrates the sense of the opposition I like to formulate as constructionism vs. instructionism when discussing directions for innovation and enhancement in education
I am asking what kinds of innovation are liable to produce radical change in how children learn.
Her experiments show that children's attention can be held for an hour a day over periods of several months by making (as opposed to using) educational software--even when the children consider the content of the software to be utterly boring in its usual classroom form.
here we do see statistically hard evidence that constructionist activity—which integrates math with art and design and where the children make the software—enhances the effectiveness of instruction given by a teacher in the same topic
Constructionism and this book are about learning; computers figure so prominently only because they provide an especially wide range of excellent contexts for constructionist learning.
Instructionism vs. constructionism looks like a split about strategies for education: two ways of thinking about the transmission of knowledge.
But behind this there is a split that goes beyond the acquisition of knowledge to touch on the nature of knowledge and the nature of knowing.

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16 Oct 14

Maha Abed

"The following essay is the first chapter in Seymour Papert and Idit Harel's book Constructionism (Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1991).

It is easy enough to formulate simple catchy versions of the idea of constructionism; for example, thinking of it as "learning-by-making." One purpose of this introductory chapter is to orient the reader toward using the diversity in the volume to elaborate--to construct--a sense of constructionism much richer and more multifaceted, and very much deeper in its implications, than could be conveyed by any such formula."

10 Oct 14

Jennifer De Goursat

#education constructionism papert

31 Aug 14

mattkelly

It is easy enough to formulate simple catchy versions of the idea of constructionism; for example, thinking of it as "learning-by-making." One purpose of this introductory chapter is to orient the reader toward using the diversity in the volume to elaborate--to construct--a sense of constructionism much richer and more multifaceted, and very much deeper in its implications, than could be conveyed by any such formula.
Constructionism--the N word as opposed to the V word--shares constructivism's connotation of learning as "building knowledge structures" irrespective of the circumstances of the learning. It then adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it's a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe.
I find an interesting toe-hold for the problem in which I called the playful facet--the element of tease inherent in the idea that it would be particularly oxymoronic to convey the idea of constructionism through a definition since, after all, constructionism boils down to demanding that everything be understood by being constructed.
Those who like to play with images of structures emerging from their own chaos, lifting themselves by their own bootstraps, are very likely predisposed to constructionism.
We show how trends as different as feminist thought and the ethnography of science join with trends in the computer culture to favor forms of knowledge based on working with concrete materials rather than abstract propositions, and this too predisposes them to prefer learning in a constructionist rather than in an instructionist mode.
But where a knife was used to shape the soap, mathematics was used here to shape the behavior of the snake and physics to figure out its structure.
This vision advances the definition of constructionism and serves as an ideal case against which results that have been actually achieved can be judged. In particular, it illustrates the sense of the opposition I like to formulate as constructionism vs. instructionism when discussing directions for innovation and enhancement in education.
The second is what ought properly to be called "e;epistemological."e; It is close to fundamental issues that philosophers think of as their own. It raises issues that are relevant to the nature of science and to the deepest debates in psychology. It is tangled with central issues of radical thinking in feminism, in Africanism, and in other areas where people fight for the right not only to think what they please, but to think it in their own ways.
While this can be, and usually is, implemented as a very local change, the implications of feminist challenges to received ideas about the nature of knowing run radically deeper. For example, traditional epistemology gives a privileged position to knowledge that is abstract, impersonal, and detached from the knower and treats other forms of knowledge as inferior. But feminist scholars have argued that many women prefer working with more personal, less-detached knowledge and do so very successfully. If this is true, they should prefer the more concrete forms of knowledge favored by constructionism to the propositional forms of knowledge favored by instructionism. The theoretical thrust of "Epistemological Pluralism" is to see this epistemological challenge as meshing with those made by the other two trends it analyzes.
The crucial thesis of "Epistemological Pluralism" is that while computers are often seen as supporting the abstract and impersonal detached kinds of knowing (which have drawn fire from feminists), computational thinking and practice has been shifting in the opposite direction towards a potential synergy with the feminist position.
But telling children how scientists do science does not necessarily lead to far-reaching change in how children do science; indeed, it cannot, as long as the school curriculum is based on verbally-expressed formal knowledge. And this, in the end, is what construction is about.

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28 Aug 14

Dennis Bayeng

22 Jul 14

Joseph Ling

constructionism boils down to demanding that everything be understood by being constructed.
Instructionism vs. constructionism

02 Jul 14

Robin Hawley-Brillante

constructivism student-centered

19 Feb 14

Seana Burr

Must read - very useful in understanding different ways of learning. How can I adapt this theory in ICT?

It is easy enough to formulate simple catchy versions of the idea of constructionism; for example, thinking of it as "learning-by-making."

18 Feb 14

Chloe Pederick

Programming literature

03 Feb 14

Jaap Bosman

08 Jan 14

Galatia Demetriou

29 Dec 13

Chrissi Nerantzi

papert lsp constructionism

28 Sep 13

Jan Hunsicker

The following essay is the first chapter in Seymour Papert and Idit Harel's book Constructionism (Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1991).

constructionism papert constructivism e-learning theory learning

09 Jun 13

Bennut Nu

Piaport lecture

constructionism papert education theory learning constructivism e-learning

11 Feb 13

Anne Castellanos

constructionism papert education theory learning constructivism e-learning

18 Nov 12

tim mcnamara

12 Nov 12

Alexandre Enkerli

15 Feb 12

donnamejeza

constructionism boils down to demanding that everything be understood by being constructed.

06 Feb 12

Ilene Dawn Alexander

Learning

26 Jan 12

jaimetong

educação construtivismo papert aprendizagem

to demanding that everything be understood by being constructed.
the more we share the less improbable it is that our self-constructed constructions should converge
The simplest definition of constructionism evokes the idea of learning-by-making
Her experiments show that children's attention can be held for an hour a day over periods of several months by making (as opposed to using) educational software--even when the children consider the content of the software to be utterly boring in its usual classroom form.
nature of knowledge and the nature of knowing.
a change in the criteria that govern what kinds of knowledge are valued in education

4 more annotations...

10 Jan 12

Luzia Gameiro

connotation of learning as "building knowledge structures" irrespective of the circumstances of the learning
ontext where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity

17 Nov 11

Andrew Williamson

Constructivist constructionism

15 Nov 11

Gene Roche

EPPL639

22 Oct 11

shawntel

actionresearch

04 Oct 11

daddy sucrose

constructionism SeymourPapert SmartTech

19 May 11

falconwhiz

the idea of constructionism; for example, thinking of it as "learning-by-making."
Constructionism--the N word as opposed to the V word--shares constructivism's connotation of learning as "building knowledge structures" irrespective of the circumstances of the learning. It then adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it's a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe.

13 May 11

Erin Patterson

education learning constructionism delicious

12 May 11

mkuyl09

Article focused on constructionism and the link to science and technology.

technology article education EDUC325

10 May 11

Tina Olson

education technology learning games constructionism

08 May 11

Richard Smyth

by Seymour Papert and Idit Harel

constructionism papert education EDCO CHS

07 Dec 10

Thomas Steele-Maley

The metaphor of a painter I used in describing one of the styles of programmer observed at the Lamplighter school is developed in Chapter 9 by Turkle and Papert in two perspectives. One ("bricolage") takes its starting point in strategies for the organization of work: The painter-programmer is guided by the work as it proceeds rather than staying with a pre-established plan.
But there is also a line of descent from the style idea. The metaphor of a painter I used in describing one of the styles of programmer observed at the Lamplighter school is developed in Chapter 9 by Turkle and Papert in two perspectives. One ("bricolage") takes its starting point in strategies for the organization of work: The painter-programmer is guided by the work as it proceeds rather than staying with a pre-established plan.
The metaphor of a painter I used in describing one of the styles of programmer observed at the Lamplighter school is developed in Chapter 9 by Turkle and Papert in two perspectives. One ("bricolage") takes its starting point in strategies for the organization of work: The painter-programmer is guided by the work as it proceeds rather than staying with a pre-established plan.

constructionism pedagogy constructivist

11 Nov 10

Kate Tracy

Gd paper that offers clear exposition

Betzi Bateman

papert constructionism

12 Oct 10

EvertonPom

PhD constructivism papert

11 Oct 10

Richard Moreau

education learning theory constructionism constructivism

felicitously

21 Sep 10

Grant Thomas

30 Jun 10

Tabitha Roder

15 Jan 10

Honor Moorman

If one eschews pipeline models of transmitting knowledge in talking among ourselves as well as in theorizing about classrooms, then one must expect that I will not be able to tell you my idea of constructionism
it would be particularly oxymoronic to convey the idea of constructionism through a definition since, after all, constructionism boils down to demanding that everything be understood by being constructed
the more we share the less improbable it is that our self-constructed constructions should converge
M
ore like the tinkerer, the bricoleur, we can come to agreement about theories of learning (at least for the present and perhaps in principle) only by groping in our disorderly bags of tricks and tools for the wherewithal to build understandings
The painter-programmer is guided by the work as it proceeds rather than staying with a pre-established plan
some people prefer ways of thinking that keep them close to physical things, while others use abstract and formal means to distance themselves form concrete material
I am asking what kinds of innovation are liable to produce radical change in how children learn
thought experiment to break the sense of necessary connection between improving learning and improving teaching
Constructionism and this book are about learning
Instructionism vs. constructionism looks like a split about strategies for education: two ways of thinking about the transmission of knowledge. But behind this there is a split that goes beyond the acquisition of knowledge to touch on the nature of knowledge and the nature of knowing
telling children how scientists do science does not necessarily lead to far-reaching change in how children do science

9 more annotations...

08 Jan 10

Paul Shepherd

It allowed time to think, to dream, to gaze, to get a new idea and try it and drop it or persist, time to talk, to see other people's work and their reaction to yours

Papert Constructionism

07 Jan 10

Alex Britez

shares constructivism's connotation of learning as "building knowledge structures" irrespective of the circumstances of the learning
adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity
Children might come to want to learn it because they would use it in building these models. And if they did want to learn it they would, even if teaching were poor or possibly nonexistent.

constructionism papert constructivism pedagogy mods eSkwela_proposal MIT epistemological Harel 1991

27 Dec 09

jon mannion

Situating Constructionism
By Seymour Papert and Idit Harel
The following essay is the first chapter in Seymour Papert and Idit Harel's book Constructionism (Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1991).

Instructionism vs. constructionism looks like a split about strategies for education: two ways of thinking about the transmission of knowledge. But behind this there is a split that goes beyond the acquisition of knowledge to touch on the nature of knowledge and the nature of knowing. There is a huge difference in status between these two splits. The first is, in itself, a technical matter that belongs in an educational school course on "methods." The second is what ought properly to be called "e;epistemological."e; It is close to fundamental issues that philosophers think of as their own. It raises issues that are relevant to the nature of science and to the deepest debates in psychology. It is tangled with central issues of radical thinking in feminism, in Africanism, and in other areas where people fight for the right not only to think what they please, but to think it in their own ways.

C as post colonial ?? JON MANNION creating a way of thinking!! our own way of thinking!! beyond science? and white male rational

It is easy enough to formulate simple catchy versions of

14 Dec 09

Clint Kennedy

papert sitcog

28 Oct 09

Dai Barnes

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08 Oct 09

Stephen Rahn

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13 Jul 09

Ross Fischer

ED693

01 Jul 09

Dave Solon

Papert Constructionim Education Theory MIT

29 Apr 09

Wendy Macpherson

17 Apr 09

Andy Coulson

13 Feb 09

Marielle Palombo

A thought-provoking essay by Seymour Papert and Idit Harel about a learning theory that begins with the idea of "learning-by-making"...

constructionism learning papert

Constructionism--the N word as opposed to the V word--shares constructivism's connotation of learning as "building knowledge structures" irrespective of the circumstances of the learning. It then adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it's a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe.

08 Feb 09

José Picardo

26 Jan 09

Vítor Ferreira

constructionism papert theory education

simple catchy versions of the idea of constructionism; for example, thinking of it as "learning-by-making."

28 Feb 08

Kevin Oliver

eci511_integration teaching_strategies

15 Feb 08

Cris Crissman

l2l

09 Dec 07

patarakin

constructivism e-learning constructionism education theory papert

22 Nov 07

Lee Kraus

Caperton constructionism

07 Aug 07

Mario A Núñez

Mario a núñez