Seb Fiedler hits on a nice article that draws out some implications of the psychological theory of constructivism, a theory which holds, essentially, that our understanding of the world is a creative act. "There is no event which could be called 'stark reality' because there is no event which we cannot reconstrue alternately." What's important is how we undertake this process (c.f. my remarks on similarity, below). We are self-organizing systems "a closed network of productions of components that through their interactions constitute the network of productions that produce them." Why is this important? Well, as Fiedler remarks, it has direct implications on the practice of teaching: "There is no linear causality that can dictate changes in another's system. Mistakenly believing that there is such causality often leads to teacher/instructor/facilitator hostility toward the student/learner/participant". Moreover, it is worth noting that the Praxis listed at the bottom of the example mirrors almost exactly the principles of educational gaming described by people like James Paul Gee. Of course - it doesn't have to be a game - that's just one way to do it. My own view is that these principles should be instantiated in real world applications - which leads us to an underlying theory of workflow learning.
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