Monday, February 6, 2023

Constructionism vs Constructivism

I always have trouble with constructivism vs constructionism. What's the difference? How can I remember it better? At first, I was going to think that I was mixing theories. 


I'm following and explaining a lot about constructivist learning theory in my VR paper. It's based on experience and reflection. Constructionist is more about a qualitative thought process or belief, an epistemology. 


I saw a few images and videos, and although they "helped" some, it still didn't really help me understand the difference and the uniqueness. 


This one about the baby's is interesting. I think what it's trying to tell me that the baby on the right is constructing his reality based on his interactions with others, and the baby on the right is understanding based on experience. But then that might mean that the terms above each baby are backward? Right? So maybe I'm misinterpreting it. 

I think I get constructivism. I've written about it a lot. I base in on experience and schema's and frameworks and development etc etc. It's when I try to link it to constructionism, that it all falls apart. What's funny, I have no problem understanding the differences between interpretivism and constructionism. 


I think the best way to keep this all together in my head is to think of "social constructionism" when I use the term constructionism. Constructionism  . . . think of money. It's paper with green preiting on it. It's somewhat worthless. Yet our society, and social constructionism, has applied value to that green printed paper and even distinguished between different pieces of paper and applied different values to them based solely on what we belief and construct. 

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