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This is a philosophy of education in which children learn by doing and experiencing. They explore and discover instead of being force fed information.
'''Constructionism''' is a philosophy of education in which children learn by doing and making in a public, guided, collaborative process including feedback from peers, not just from teachers. They explore and discover instead of being force fed information, or subjected to a regime of social control as in the Prussian system adopted in the US and elsewhere, sometimes called [[Instructionism]]. Constructionist guidance has to be informed by a knowledge of what there is to explore and discover, including our ignorance, and of a variety of approaches that can be used for children at different developmental levels with various degrees of preparation.


Much more on this topic can be found by exploring Google using keywords such as "constructionism", "education", "philosophy". One small start is here: http://mia.openworldlearning.org/constructivism.htm
More on this topic can be found by exploring Google using keywords such as "constructionism", "education", "philosophy". See for instance [http://mia.openworldlearning.org/constructivism.htm openworldlearning], [[Seymour Papert]]'s website, http://www.papert.org , and
⚫
the wikipedia article on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructionist_learning constructionist learning]. Constructionism is implemented on the OLPC XO in the form of [[collaborative discovery]].


"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - Attributed to Confucius.
More info can be found on [[Seymour Papert]]'s website: http://www.papert.org


Constructionism is built on the foundation of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory) Constructivism], the theory of childhood learning created by [[Jean Piaget]], [[Lev Vygotsky]], and many others.
⚫
Also this wikipedia article on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructionist_learning constructionist learning]


== History and Examples==
===Education should start with End Goals===
<div style="border:1px solid #aaa; margin:1px; padding:2px;font-size:90%">
{{education-literature}}
</div>


[[Alan Kay]] and his [[Squeak]] project have done a lot to make tools available to teachers who want to develop constructionist educational materials. Alan recently gave a [http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=167318 keynote at EuroPython] demonstrating how kids can learn constructively.
OLPC is a means, but what is the goal? Educated and empowered citizens. What I learn as a child needs to make sense in my culture and for my future. A southern Nigerian Christian farm girl will not have the same language learning goals as a Muslim boy in an urban setting. One might choose to learn French, the other Arabic. The vision that they have for adult life will determine what learning steps they take. The girl could aspire to serving as a translator at the UN, but the boy might want to teach at a mosque.


One of the great pioneers of the practice, long before the term, was University of Pittsburgh's sociologist Omar Khayyam Moore, who built his "[http://www.winwenger.com/archives/part26.htm Edison Talking Typewriter]" to teach two-year olds to read and write simply by reinforcing aspects of their spontaneous behavior.
A laptop computer is a tool, and a very powerful one. Constructionism is a methodology and a viewpoint. What OLPC is missing is a ''philosophy of development'' that incorporates education. Otherwise the power of the tool and the methodology will be wasted and the girl will work in the fields to feed her children and the boy will drive a taxi to feed his family.


Prof. Howard Peelle of the Education School at the University of Massachusetts has written about his experiments with APL in elementary school. The idea is to let children play a game, then learn to make simple adjustments to game play, and progress to full programming. IBM once sponsored a program to support APL for a whole elementary school.
Politics will determine the success of OLPC since government education ministries will implement the program.


There does not appear to be a single Best Computer Language for elementary school students, though [[BASIC]] is popular. [[Python]], [[APL]], [[LISP]], [[LOGO]], [[Squeak|Smalltalk]], and many many others have also been used. It would be useful to bring the resulting knowledge together. It is clearly impossible to settle the question based only on the stated preferences of adults who don't know all of the languages concerned, that is through [http://mindprod.com/jgloss/rwar.html rwars]. In any case, Python has been chosen by the OLPC to be the base language of the laptop. For an overview of various ways in which people have applied Python to education, check this link http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/
:Most of this criticsm is answered in the [[FAQ]].

Now that the XO laptops are in the hands of kids, why not see what they have to say? Go ask [[Rufus]] for instance. We will eventually read reports of the results from Nigeria and Peru and other countries, but for now, [[Rufus|a little boy in England]] says it all quite eloquently.

== See also ==
* [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team/Education_Bibliographies Sugar Labs' Education Bibliographies] ([http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-September/thread.html#8747 discussion])
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach Reggio Emilia approach]
* [[Learning Learning]] parables.
* [[Constructivist Schools]]
* [[Jean Piaget]], founder of [ ]
* [[Lev Vygotsky]], independent discoverer of Constructivist ideas
* [[Seymour Papert]], founder of Constructionism
* [[Jerome Bruner]], pioneer in cognitive psychology, with a focus on ways of constructing meaning
* NB: Constructivism is not 'Edutainment'; see
* [http://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/edutainment.pdf Edutainment? No Thanks. I Prefer Playful Learning]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructionism_%28learning_theory%29 Wikipedia article: Constructionism (learning theory)]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_%28learning_theory%29 Wikipedia article: Constructivism (learning theory)]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_teaching_methods Wikipedia article: Constructivist teaching methods]
* [http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=151 Learning Mathematics with Virtual Manipulatives]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_literacy Information Literacy], as a possible way to assess constructionism's effectiveness
* [http://www.users.on.net/~billkerr/a/isdp.htm Educational Software: Designed by Kids for Kids] by [http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2009/07/liping-ma.html Bill Kerr]
* [http://xo-whs2009.blogspot.com/2009/09/realistic-constructionism.html Realistic Constructionism] by [http://billkerr2.blogspot.com Bill Kerr]

[[Category:General Public]]
[[Category:Pedagogical ideas]]

Latest revision as of 02:00, 14 August 2013

  english | français | español | 日本語 | 한국어 HowTo [ID# 291438]  +/-  

Constructionism is a philosophy of education in which children learn by doing and making in a public, guided, collaborative process including feedback from peers, not just from teachers. They explore and discover instead of being force fed information, or subjected to a regime of social control as in the Prussian system adopted in the US and elsewhere, sometimes called Instructionism. Constructionist guidance has to be informed by a knowledge of what there is to explore and discover, including our ignorance, and of a variety of approaches that can be used for children at different developmental levels with various degrees of preparation.

More on this topic can be found by exploring Google using keywords such as "constructionism", "education", "philosophy". See for instance openworldlearning, Seymour Papert's website, http://www.papert.org , and the wikipedia article on constructionist learning. Constructionism is implemented on the OLPC XO in the form of collaborative discovery.

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - Attributed to Confucius.

Constructionism is built on the foundation of Constructivism, the theory of childhood learning created by Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and many others.

History and Examples

Books and notes +/-

Alan Kay and his Squeak project have done a lot to make tools available to teachers who want to develop constructionist educational materials. Alan recently gave a keynote at EuroPython demonstrating how kids can learn constructively.

One of the great pioneers of the practice, long before the term, was University of Pittsburgh's sociologist Omar Khayyam Moore, who built his "Edison Talking Typewriter" to teach two-year olds to read and write simply by reinforcing aspects of their spontaneous behavior.

Prof. Howard Peelle of the Education School at the University of Massachusetts has written about his experiments with APL in elementary school. The idea is to let children play a game, then learn to make simple adjustments to game play, and progress to full programming. IBM once sponsored a program to support APL for a whole elementary school.

There does not appear to be a single Best Computer Language for elementary school students, though BASIC is popular. Python, APL, LISP, LOGO, Smalltalk, and many many others have also been used. It would be useful to bring the resulting knowledge together. It is clearly impossible to settle the question based only on the stated preferences of adults who don't know all of the languages concerned, that is through rwars. In any case, Python has been chosen by the OLPC to be the base language of the laptop. For an overview of various ways in which people have applied Python to education, check this link http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/

Now that the XO laptops are in the hands of kids, why not see what they have to say? Go ask Rufus for instance. We will eventually read reports of the results from Nigeria and Peru and other countries, but for now, a little boy in England says it all quite eloquently.

See also

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