No es oro todo lo que reluce ni se construye (igual) todo lo que se aprende: contra el reduccionismo constructivista

Abstract

The constructivist conception of the nature of knowledge and knowledge acquisition has gone beyond the realm of theory and research, and is now used in applied situations and interventions. This expansion calls for a careful reflection on constructivism's multiple uses in these domains. This article advocates restricting its use as an approach to human learning that differentiates between static construction (or assimilation), necessary to the functioning of any organic or artificial cognitive system, and dynamic construction (or accomodation), composed by the mechanisms that act to change knowledge. In this regard it may be that not all these mechanisms of change, or learning, are constructive, since a large part of our implicit learning, which is linked to development and informal learning, may be based on associative processes. Constructive processes may be linked more to formal learning, and involve the explicitation of knowledge acquired implicitly. Therefore, as a learning process, construction should be linked to processes of awareness and the redescription of one's own knowledge. This article illustrates these ideas in the context of one specific urea of learning -learning scientific concepts.