[Olpc-open] Constructionism
Alex Belits
abelits at phobos.illtel.denver.co.us
Sat May 24 10:15:09 EDT 2008
Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
> I think there's a misunderstanding here. Eben and Bert are talking
> about children being able to engage other people (not just other
> children) in learning, Alex (in my opinion) talks about the more broad
> role of a teacher as those in conventional schools.
I meant, regardless of the model being used it's teacher's
responsibility to provide direction, to make sure that students
understand the goals of their study, and to keep them from abandoning
the study out of frustration or because they lose interest. It's a hard
task, and if teacher fails to perform it, other students, no matter how
bright, are not in a position to fill his role -- they usually still
lack sufficient knowledge of the "bigger picture" of the subject, can't
realistically evaluate others' ability and willingness to absorb and
process knowledge, and often are not in a proper social position to deal
with frustration of their peers. Trying to force them into such a role
does no good, and only deepens the "drama" I have described.
I am not questioning the fact that when kids are interested and
motivated, provided with sufficient materials and help with genuinely
hard to understand concepts, and adults do not artificially place them
in positions of each other's enemies or oppressors, students co-operate
and enhance each other's learning. However it's teacher's responsibility
to provide necessary elements for this environment -- if it wasn't, and
large groups of people were naturally inclined toward co-operative
self-education, the most popular online activity would be reading and
editing Wikipedia instead of playing World of Warcraft or posting
nonsense on Myspace.
--
Alex
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