Are constructivism and computer-based learning environments incompatible?
Abstracts: English | French | Spanish Calls for the widespread use of computer-based educational technology often justify themselves by the potential to support some version of constructivism, seen to be a major improvement in education over more behaviorist or information transfer notions of teaching. In a seminal article, Allan Collins, an early proponent of constructivism and a leader in forming the field of cognitive science, contrasts two views of pedagogy that “have been at war for centuries”: the didactic and the constructivist (Collins, 1991, p. 29). Here Collins associates the didactic view with the behaviorist and information transfer models of teaching where the facts and concepts of a domain are directly taught to students. Constructivism shifts the attention from teaching to learning where students are to “construct their own understandings and capabilities in carrying out challenging tasks” (Collins, 1991, p. 29). Collins further links constructivism and technology implyi
