Among Dr. Seymour Papert’s vast contributions to knowledge, his framing of educational decision making through the lens of instructionism vs. constructionism may be the most profound, useful, and enduring. Any discussion, debate, controversy, or concern about education policy or decision about pedagogical approach is based on the personal stance of how you believe learning occurs. Papert posits that people fall into two camps, instructionists and constructionists.
Chapter 7: Instructionism versus Constructionism, a chapter from Papert’s critically important book, The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer, has appeared online.
While this dichotomy is discussed in other places by Papert (text • multimedia), this book chapter is quite thorough and approachable for a non-academic audience.
Be sure to check out the growing archive of text and multimedia on this site, as well as Papert’s books!