Mackrell, K; Pratt, D; (2017) Constructionism and the space of reasons. Mathematics Education Research Journal , 29 (4) pp. 419-435. 10.1007/s13394-017-0194-6.

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Abstract

Constructionism, best known as the framework for action underpinning Seymour Papert’s work with Logo, has stressed the importance of engaging students in creating their own products. Noss and Hoyles have argued that such activity enables students to participate increasingly in a web of connections to further their activity. Ainley and Pratt have elaborated that learning is best facilitated when the student is engaged in a purposeful activity that leads to appreciation of the power of mathematical ideas. Constructionism gives prominence to how the learner’s logical reasoning and emotion-driven reasons for engagement are inseparable. We argue that the dependence of constructionism upon the orienting framework of constructivism fails to provide sufficient theoretical underpinning for these ideas. We therefore propose an alternative orienting framework, in which learning takes place through initiation into the space of reasons, such that a person’s thoughts, actions and feelings are increasingly open to critique and justification. We argue that knowing as responsiveness to reasons encompasses not only the powerful ideas of mathematics and disciplinary knowledge of modes of enquiry but also the extralogical, such as in feelings of the aesthetic, control, excitement, elegance and efficiency. We discuss the implication that mathematics educators deeply consider the learner’s reasons for purposeful activity and design settings in which these reasons can be made public and open to critique.

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