Piaget and Papert

Piaget was a psychologist and epistemologist, that formalized the theory of constructivism and stage development. He believed that “knowledge does not result from receipt of information transmitted by someone else without the learner undergoing an internal process of sense making” 1. 13pg itl

Seymor Papert, mathematician, computer scientist, artificial intelligence pioneer, epistemologist, father of the making movement and cofounder of the MIT Media Lab. “His life’s work has been creating tools, theories, and coercion-free learning environments that inspire children to construct powerful ideas through firsthand experience” 2. 18pg itl

Here are some quotes I’ve found useful:

“The real cause of failure in formal education is therefore essentially the fact that one begins with language instead of beginning with real and material action” Piaget

“Learning is achieved through experimentation, practice and exposure to the real world” Papert

The maker culture: “Students will learn, they will invent, they will teach, they will collaborate, and they will share knowledge when it best suits their needs, interests, and style” Invent to learn, page 25

“Schools should seize any opportunity for students to learn and express their knowledge in new and exciting ways. Classrooms need to reflect the world their kids live and leverage new tools to amplify human capacity” Invent to learn, page 26

“Constructivism is a well-established theory of learning indicating that people actively construct new knowledge by combining their experiences with what they already know” Invent to learn, page 31

“When the learner is engaged in a personally meaningful activity outside of their head that makes the learning real and sharable” Invent to learn, page 32

“… They understand that when you do something yourself, the thing that changes most profoundly is you” Frauenfelder

“Making is a way of documenting the thinking of a learner in a sharable artifact” Invent to learn, page 43

“Students with a tinkering mindset and space full of creative opportunities will create products, tackle problems, and devise intricate inquiry strategies as they tinker, make and build” Invent to learn, page 57

“My interest is in the process of invention of “objects-to-think-with”, objects in which there is an intersection of cultural presence, embedded knowledge, and the possibility for personal identification” Mindstorms, page 11

“Tinkering is what happens when you try something you don’t quite know how to do, guided by him, imagination and curiosity. When you tinker, there are not instructions- but there are also no failures, no right or wrong ways of doing things. It’s figuring out how things work and reworking them…Tinkering is, at its most basic, a process that marries play and inquiry” Banzi

“Play is the work of the child” “Play gives children a change to practice what they are learning” Maria Montessori

Reference:

Invent to learn — Making, Thinkeringm and engineering in the classroom
Sylvia Libow and Gary Stager

Mindstroms — Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas
Seymour Papert