Studies show that a curious mind is fertile ground for learning, so combining the freedom of play and exploration with more structured learning goals is a more powerful formula than a 100% teacher driven approach to lessons (Gruber, 2014). If you can set aside your notions about what a classroom should sound, smell or look… Read more »
Stick with me, this is a bit of a long story to get to some things I am thinking about in terms of making in the classroom. I can now check one thing off that bucket list, I won a blue ribbon at the San Mateo County Fair. (What, that is not on your bucket… Read more »
Watch this FabLearn Fellow webinar. The topic is “Maker Mindset” – what does it mean for modern learning spaces? Audio only link This webinar will also be available as part of the FabLearn podcast series Meaningful Making at meaningfulmaking.simplecast.fm. If you want to have the latest episode of Meaningful Making delivered to your phone / computer the moment… Read more »
Watch this FabLearn webinar about what the “Maker Mindset” looks like in real learning spaces. The FabLearn Fellows discuss the topic with Sylvia Martinez and Paulo Blikstein, director of the FabLearn program, wrapping up with a guest appearance from the students in Tracy Rudzitis’s maker class in New York City. This webinar will also be available… Read more »
Watch this FabLearn Fellow webinar with special guest Gary Stager. Gary spoke on the topic of “Constructionism and Teaching.” We covered a lot of ground in this webinar including: constructivism, Seymour Papert, changing teaching practices, what makes a good project, use of kits, documentation, making as more than just “hands-on,” makerspaces vs. classroom integrated making… Read more »
This video is the first of a couple of webinars with the FabLearn Fellows about some of the big ideas of education that support digital fabrication and making in education. Along with several of the FabLearn Fellows, Sylvia Martinez interviews Paulo Blikstein about “Three Cs – Constructivism, Constructionism, and Critical Pedagogy.” We were also… Read more »
Ten months ago, I left the familiarity of the formal classroom setting in pursuit of practices in constructionism, free of the tyranny of standardardized testing and a one size fits all curriculum. While driving from coast to coast and back again, I visited some truly inspiring makerspaces. From the woods of New Hampshire, to the… Read more »
“Learning … happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity.” Seymour Papert “Papert is interested in how learners engage in a conversation with [their own or other people’s] artifacts, and how these conversations boost self-directed learning, and ultimately facilitate the construction of new knowledge.” Edith Ackermann… Read more »
The FabLearn Fellows have started to create translations of the Eight Big Ideas Behind the Constructionist Learning Laboratory by Seymour Papert into various languages. 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… Read more »
8 grans idees darrere del Laboratori Construccionista d’Aprenentatge Extracte de la tesi doctoral “An Investigation of Contructionism at the Maine Youth Center? de Gary Stager 2007. La primera gran idea és aprendre fent. Tots aprenem millor quan l’aprenentatge és una part del fer alguna cosa que ens sembla realment interessant. Aprenem de la millor manera… Read more »