Seymour Papert

Watch this clip from the early days of computers. Seymour Papert was one of the first people to see the potential of computers in education. His particular contribution was to bring a Constructivist approach to computers in education. Seymour Papert (6:23):

You can also read the preface to Papert’s book The Children’s Machine – http://www.papert.org/articles/ChildrensMachine.html

1: Join the discussion group called 2.7 The Sweet Spot  and share with your group what ideas from Papert you find intriguing.

Piaget

Papert studied under Piaget who is one of the foundational educational thinkers.

Piaget describes how children’s understanding of the world (schemas) get challenged, taking them out of equilibrium into disequilibrium. To resolve this, they either assimilate the new information into their existing schemas, or they accommodate the new information by creating new schemas.

Piaget: Assimilation and Accommodation (4:25)

​As you can hear in the video, it is all about the child constructing meaning.

2: Do you encourage disequilibrium in your classes? ​Access the discussion group called 2.7 The Sweet Spot. Think back to Erica McWilliam, and comment on this statement:
“As teachers we tend to want to do the learning for the students. In doing this we do not allow them to experience disequilibrium”.

When you are ready to continue to the next activity, click on the Mark Complete button below (first time) and Next Topic on subsequent visits to this page.