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GMoLS4E22 Social Constructivists with Donald Clark

Great Minds on Learning

Release Date: 03/27/2023

GMoLS7E37 Question Time show art GMoLS7E37 Question Time

Great Minds on Learning

Send in your questions for the Great Minds on Learning Q&A! Donald Clark and John Helmer will answer them at Online Educa Conference in Berlin, which will be recorded for a podcast episode to be issued before Christmas 2024. Email them in to or reach out on social media.

info_outline GMoLS6E36 Continental Theorists with Donald Clark show art GMoLS6E36 Continental Theorists with Donald Clark

Great Minds on Learning

Deconstructing Continental Philosophy's Impact on Modern Education. At the end of the 19th Century, a split in Philosophy emerged that persists today. The Analytic tradition, led by Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein, emphasized clarity, logical rigour, and formal methods in language analysis. By contrast, Continental theorists such as Husserl and Heidegger went to a very different place. They focused on human experience and took on broader cultural and political themes, giving us terms like existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism, and postmodernism. In this final episode of the...

info_outline GMoLS6E35 Psychoanalysts with Donald Clark show art GMoLS6E35 Psychoanalysts with Donald Clark

Great Minds on Learning

Learning in the post-Freudian age At the beginning of the 20th Century, fundamental assumptions about the nature of the mind and how it learns were completely overturned by a new set of ideas. Pre-eminent among the thinkers and practitioners who spearheaded a new field of study called psychoanalysis was the Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud. Following his death in 1939, Freud’s followers continued and developed his ideas, and psychoanalysis grew ever more influential, not just in the treatment of mental illness, but in government, business, philosophy and education. Though most of...

info_outline GMoLS6E34 Connectionists with Donald Clark show art GMoLS6E34 Connectionists with Donald Clark

Great Minds on Learning

Is the mind flatter than we thought? This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the ‘Performance Journey Goes Dutch’ conference in Ermelo, The Netherlands, organised by Xpertise Learning. Donald and John explore a group of theorists who are giving us a new picture of how we think and learn that is distinctively different from what came before. They’re the Connectionists, and they see the brain as flatter than was previously thought, constantly trying to predict what will happen next, and to improvise a response. But what are the implications for learning of this New...

info_outline GMoLS6E34 Connectionists with Donald Clark show art GMoLS6E34 Connectionists with Donald Clark

Great Minds on Learning

Is the mind flatter than we thought? This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the ‘Performance Journey Goes Dutch’ conference in Ermelo, The Netherlands, organised by Xpertise Learning. Donald and John explore a group of theorists who are giving us a new picture of how we think and learn that is distinctively different from what came before. They’re the Connectionists, and they see the brain as flatter than was previously thought, constantly trying to predict what will happen next, and to improvise a response. But what are the implications for learning of this New...

info_outline GMoLS6E33 Scribes 2: Literacy and Orality, with Donald Clark show art GMoLS6E33 Scribes 2: Literacy and Orality, with Donald Clark

Great Minds on Learning

Second of a two-part series on the invention of writing and the impact of literacy on learning. Last time, Donald and John discussed how writing was invented in the ancient world. This time the focus moves to the 20th Century, and thinkers such as Walter Ong and Eric Havelock who revived interest in the pre-literate world of oral culture. Their work raised themes that were to become ever more resonant with the rise of the internet and AI. 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:56 - Introducing Literacy & Orality 00:09:15 - Walter J. Ong (1912-2023) 00:22:44 - Eric Alfred Havelock (1903-1988) 00:33:08 -...

info_outline GMoLS6E32 Scribes: The Invention of Writing with Donald Clark show art GMoLS6E32 Scribes: The Invention of Writing with Donald Clark

Great Minds on Learning

First of a two-part series on the invention of writing and the impact of literacy on learning. Our ability to learn from written texts is something we take for granted. But like every other technology that humans use, writing had to be invented. Notational signs used next to images of animals are seen in cave paintings from as early as 35,000 BCE. Actual writing is first recorded in Uruk (modern day Iraq), at the end of the 4th millennium BCE, but seems to have been independently invented in at least three other places; Egypt, China and Mesoamerica. It proved a pivotal moment in human...

info_outline GMoLS6E31 Leadership with Donald Clark show art GMoLS6E31 Leadership with Donald Clark

Great Minds on Learning

Theories and critiques of leadership learning: the attribution problem and its consequences. This episode, the first of a new season, our sixth, focuses on leadership. Leadership, thought since ancient times to be critical to the destiny of nations, has long been a feature of military training and elite education. But its arrival as a staple of workplace training was relatively recent. Donald and John explore the work of the thinkers who, from the middle of the Twentieth Century onwards, developed theories and critiques of leadership learning.   00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:56 - Introducing...

info_outline GMoLS6E0 - Private View of Season 6 with Donald Clark show art GMoLS6E0 - Private View of Season 6 with Donald Clark

Great Minds on Learning

John and Donald preview the upcoming season of Great Mind on Learning. The sixth season of Great Minds on Learning begins on Monday 15th April 2024. Ahead of the first episode, John and Donald preview the treats in store! The Blog that started it all: Contact Donald X: @DonaldClark LinkedIn:  Blog:  Contact John Helmer X: @johnhelmer LinkedIn:  Website:  Patreon: 

info_outline GMoLS5E30 Generative AI with Donald Clark show art GMoLS5E30 Generative AI with Donald Clark

Great Minds on Learning

The theory behind generative AI as a transformational tool for learning. This episode, the last in the current season, was recorded at the Online Educa conference in Berlin and focuses on Generative AI. Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the learning world has been mesmerized by the potential benefits and dangers of this new form of AI. Unlike other forms, it can be accessed by non-technical people, in natural language conversations. Donald and John explore its roots in neuro-biological research, as well as the learning theory underpinning Donald's belief that it is potentially...

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Social constructivism had its origins in the thought of Karl Marx. However, it became a strong influence on educationalists in the capitalist West during the latter half of the 20th Century, and thinkers such as Piaget and Vygotsky are popular on teacher training courses to this day. But does its central tenet, that learning is socially constructed rather than individually discovered, hold up under scrutiny?
 
  • Introducing Social Constructivism – 1:24
  • Jean Piaget (1896-1980) – 6:44
  • Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) – 19:22
  • Jerome Bruner (1915-2016) – 33:12
  • Margaret Donaldson (1926-2020) – 41:56
  • Merlin Wittrock (1931 - 2007) – 52:22
  • Summing Up – 1:04:57
  • Piaget bit.ly/2vRLT9J
  • Vygotsky bit.ly/2SlHymF
  • Bruner bit.ly/2OB4r4o
  • Donaldson bit.ly/39eMvo1
  • Wittrock bit.ly/3EQW2Sp

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Contact John Helmer