Constructionism, the gift that keeps on giving

I’ve just returned from Lithuania where I attended and spoke at the Constructionism 2018 conference. Constructionism is a term that Seymour Papert used to describe how learning happens. It extends the Piagetian idea that knowledge is constructed  inside the head of the learner, building on the existing knowledge and unique experiences of each learner. Papert added the idea that this knowledge construction is aided when the learner is involved in constructing personally meaningful things that can be shared with a community.  More than just “hands on” or project-based learning, constructionism can be a subtle thing to explain.

Eight Big Ideas poster
The Eight Big Ideas of Constructionism Poster (PDF)

In 1999, Seymour Papert embarked on his last ambitious institutional research project when he created the constructionist, technology-rich, multi-aged Constructionist Learning Laboratory inside of Maine’s troubled prison for teens, The Maine Youth Center. This project was the basis for Gary Stager’s dissertation. As Gary shares in our book, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, Papert outlined “Eight Big Ideas” as a handout to help visitors understand constructionism as a living, practical approach to creating an optimal learning environment.

Over the last year, the Stanford University FabLearn Fellows have translated the Eight Big Ideas Behind the Constructionist Learning Laboratory into various languages. Thanks to some new friends at Constructionism 2018, we are now up to 11 translations of the original English text!

German, Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, Italian, Swahili, Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Korean, and Galician

Korean translators Ungyeol Jung and Doyong Kim said, “We have felt the power of learning by doing again through translation, because it helped us understand much more than before.”

Students in Mathias Wunderlich’s makerspace collaborated on the German translation with more enthusiasm than a school exercise because it connected with what they do everyday in the makerspace. Read more of this story here.

“Felix, Aaron, and Oskar do their very best to understand Papert’s ideas.”

If you’d like to add another language, please comment here!

Constructionism – the gift that keeps on giving!

8 Big Ideas of the Constructionist Learning Lab

In 1999, Seymour Papert, the father of educational technology, embarked on his last ambitious institutional research project when he created the constructionist, technology-rich, project-based,  multi-aged Constructionist Learning Laboratory inside of Maine’s troubled prison for teens, The Maine Youth Center.

The story of the Constructivist Learning Laboratory is documented in Gary Stager’s doctoral dissertation, “An Investigation of Constructionism in the Maine Youth Center.” The University of Melbourne. 2006.

Gary shares, “Shortly after the start of  the three-year project, Papert outlined the Eight Big Ideas Behind the Constructionist Learning Laboratory (PDF). Although non-exhaustive, this list does a good job of explaining constructionism to the general population.” Gary is also curating a site of Papert quotes called The Daily Papert, showcasing the enduring wisdom of Dr. Papert.

Eight Big Ideas Behind the Constructionist Learning Lab
By Dr. Seymour Papert

The first big idea is learning by doing. We all learn better when learning is part of doing something we find really interesting. We learn best of all when we use what we learn to make something we really want.

The second big idea is technology as building material. If you can use technology to make things you can make a lot more interesting things. And you can learn a lot more by making them. This is especially true of digital technology: computers of all sorts including the computer-controlled Lego in our Lab.

The third big idea is hard fun. We learn best and we work best if we enjoy what we are doing. But fun and enjoying doesn’t mean “easy.” The best fun is hard fun. Our sports heroes work very hard at getting better at their sports. The most successful carpenter enjoys doing carpentry. The successful businessman enjoys working hard at making deals.

The fourth big idea is learning to learn. Many students get the idea that “the only way to learn is by being taught.” This is what makes them fail in school and in life. Nobody can teach you everything you need to know. You have to take charge of your own learning.

The fifth big idea is taking time – the proper time for the job. Many students at school get used to being told every five minutes or every hour: do this, then do that, now do the next thing. If someone isn’t telling them what to do they get bored. Life is not like that. To do anything important you have to learn to manage time for yourself. This is the hardest lesson for many of our students.

The sixth big idea is the biggest of all: you can’t get it right without getting it wrong. Nothing important works the first time. The only way to get it right is to look carefully at what happened when it went wrong. To succeed you need the freedom to goof on the way.

The seventh big idea is do unto ourselves what we do unto our students. We are learning all the time. We have a lot of experience of other similar projects but each one is different. We do not have a pre-conceived idea of exactly how this will work out. We enjoy what we are doing but we expect it to be hard. We expect to take the time we need to get this right. Every difficulty we run into is an opportunity to learn. The best lesson we can give our students is to let them see us struggle to learn.

The eighth big idea is we are entering a digital world where knowing about digital technology is as important as reading and writing. So learning about computers is essential for our students’ futures BUT the most important purpose is using them NOW to learn about everything else.

Download the PDF of these 8 big ideas and share widely!

Sylvia

Constructionism 2010

I’ll be in Paris, France for the next week to attend Constructionism 2010 at the University of Paris. Constructionism 2010 is a reincarnation of Eurologo, and the name change refelects the myriad of opportunities that exist today for using technology to express the educational philosophy of constructionism.

I’m looking forward to linking the learning from Constructing Modern Knowledge 2010 last month to Constructionism 2010. Seminal people in constructionism will be there, including Idit Harel, Cynthia Solomon, Gary Stager, Jose Valente, and Brian Harvey. Of course, this list is completely personal (and geographically biased!). But that’s how learning happens, you connect one idea to the next, one person to the next, building and constructing knowledge as you go. I look forward to adding more people and expanding my learning and my network.

I always think I’m going to blog while I’m on the road, but it rarely happens, so no promises. But I’ll have lots to share when I return.

Sylvia

Constructivism in practice – making lectures work

Posted with permission from The Institute for Learning Centered Education – Don Mesibov

If you must lecture, please don’t do it early in the lesson.
Most teachers begin a lesson with a launcher, anticipatory set, ice breaker, bell ringer or an exploratory activity (which we recommend). Each of these often motivates students to think something good might happen during class; some of the students actually begin to look forward to what might come next.

Unfortunately, just as students are beginning to think they might not mind being in class, the teacher too often launches into a lecture and all momentum is lost. It’s like the dead scene in a play that interrupts the flow of excitement generated earlier.

Why do teachers lecture early in a lesson? It’s because we have new information we want our students to learn and we want to start by telling them what we want them to know. But it isn’t effective. If the content is completely new to students it is hard to follow the words of a speaker. It is like trying to learn the rules and procedures of baseball when you’ve had no previous knowledge that such a game existed. If you want to teach someone baseball, hand them a glove and have a catch. Put a bat in their hands and pitch to them. Then you can start to explain how the game is played – after, not before, you have actively engaged them.

I’ve sat in the back of the room as teachers have tried to explain to students what they want them to learn. I’ve noticed the faces of the disinterested students. They have no hooks to hang their thoughts on – no context for understanding what the teacher is saying. Sometimes what the teacher says early in the lesson would be more effective if said near the end when the students have been engaged with the new information. The lecture might be more effective as a summary. Once you’ve tried hitting a ball with a bat for fifteen minutes, a mini-lecture on how to stand and how to hold the bat has much more meaning.

Here are some examples of how to engage students with new information BEFORE beginning your explanations.

  • BILL OF RIGHTS: Don’t explain or describe them. Distribute a one page summary of the Bill of Rights, pair the students and ask each pair to prioritize them in order of importance. Then ask each pair to justify its prioritization. There is no right or wrong and it doesn’t matter how each pair prioritizes. What is important is that the students have been challenged to think about each article and what it means.
  • TOO, TO, AND TWO: Pair or group students and ask them to design an ad for their favorite TV show or DVD, or food using each of these words correctly at least once.
  • MIXTURES AND SOLUTIONS: Give students different substances to mix and ask them to share conclusions they reach based on the results.
  • PERCENTAGES: Ask students, in pairs or groups, to share their perceptions of what’s good and what’s bad about buying with credit cards. This can lead to a lesson on percentages that students perceive as relevant when you ask them to assess whether the purchase of a sale item, using a credit card, will actually save money when the interest payments are taken into account.

You can probably come up with more and better examples. My only point is that after you grab the students’ attention with a good opening, don’t blow it by losing the momentum with a lecture that the students probably won’t understand anyway.

Please know that your work in the field of education is as meaningful to our society as anything anyone can possibly do. Thank you for caring about the future of our children!!!!

Don Mesibov October 2009
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Copyright (c) 2009, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All rights reserved.

The Institute is currently registering teams for the 2010 summer constructivist conference, July 19-23, at St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teachers are using increasingly in the classroom. More information at The Institute for Learning Centered Education.