The Nature of Constructionist Learning

Bakhtiar Mikhak (mikhak@media.mit.edu)

This course examines the philosophical and theoretical foundations of constructionism as a paradigm within which theories for learning and approaches to education are formulated and evaluated. The goal of this course is to help new graduate student researchers interested in the constructionist framework to situate their research questions and interests within this paradigm through readings and projects that will focus on the rich interplay between powerful ideas, learners, tools, and communities in knowledge construction from a constructionist perspective. For the first half of the term, the course will focus on theoretical foundations. In the second half of the term, we not only will continue to build on this foundation but also will apply it to evaluating the projects in which the students are involved or interested.