Papert’s Constructionism: A felicitous partner of OEP Linda van RyneveldOE Global, Cape Town

Seymour Aubrey Papert

South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist, & educator

Pioneer of artificial intelligence Pioneer of the constructionist movement in education Co-inventor of the Logo programming language Worked under Piaget in France

Papert’s lens

Student reconstruct rather than receive knowledge

Student relies on prior knowledge & reasoning power rather than pre-packaged resources

Student learns through creative experimentation rather than rote-learning

Teacher facilitates and coach rather than lectures and provide step-by-step instructions

Teacher mediates rather than instruct

Constructionism

Strong connections with constructivism on the one hand and experiential learning on the other

“Learning by making” Learning happens most effectively when students

actively constructing a meaningful product can see a tangible result for their efforts

Give up the traditional notion of a fixed curriculum You learn things best when you need to use it

My own OER journey

Proponent of OERs since the 90’s Involvement in various primary and secondary schools Instructional designer AfriVIP (OE veterinary portal ) Education (Computer-integrated education)

My OEP Context

2 Modules (Elearning & Computers as Cognitive Tools) BEd Hons in Computer-Integrated Education Once every two weeks 7 contact sessions 3 hours each Monday evening

OEP the Papert way

Structure but not a fixed curriculum Predictable format for contact sessions

Theory test Short intro Various social activities Recap & homework Reflection

Predictable format for ClickUP (Blackboard) home base Powerpoints & lecture notes Activities Reading lists

OEP: Curriculum

Learning theories (Constructivism/Behaviourism/Cognitivism)

Instructional design models (ADDIE/Gagne/Dick & Carey) Principles for good HE teaching (Chickering/Angelo) Educational technologies (Mobile devices/VR devices) Software applications (PlayPosit/ YouTube/ Mentimeter) Peer support & assessment, Design principles, Modes of

delivery, OER sourcing& evaluation, etc.

OEP: Subject-specific resources

Did away with the single prescribed textbook Reading lists (3 – 5 solid articles) Formally assessed Structured activities to find and

review related OERs

OEP: Learning activities

Rich in content and skills, for example Student response systems

(Clickers/Mentimeter/PollEverywhere) Presentation tools (PowerPoint, Prezi) Interactive video (PP, YouTube, PlayPosit, EdPuzzle) Note-taking (Microsoft OneNote, Evernote) Website design & hosting (Wix, Weebly, Google Docs)

OEP: Reflection

What are your three 'take home' messages? What did you find particularly interesting/useful? What questions do you still have? What would you like to follow up on after class? What didn't work for you?

My OEP lens

Social constructivism Constructionism Inquiry-led learning Student-centered & self-directed Incidental / discovery learning Flipped classroom Open educational resources (OERs)

The felicitous partnership

Only used OER (scholarly articles, software applications)

Content and artifacts created by students (all OER licensed)

Culminated in an open website owned, created and managed by each student individually

Linda.vanryneveld@up.ac.zaComments & Questions?

We need to produce people who know how to act

when they are faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared.

[Papert]