The Lego/Logo Learning Environment in Technology Education: An Experiment in a Finnish Context

Introduction According to constructivist theory, learning is an active, continuous process whereby the learner takes information from the environment and constructs personal interpretations and meaning based on prior knowledge and experience (von Glasersfeld, 1995). Personal interests and needs that arise from the learner have a great influence on the learning process. Learning is also seen as a social phenomenon in which learning is mediated through the social interactions among the members of the learning community as they engage in the learning activity (Konold, 1995; Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1986). Knowledge is seen to be social in nature. It is shared through the members of the learning community by means of context dependent language (Gergen, 1995; Bjorkvist, 1994). According to Rogoff (1990, p. 141) social interaction in cognitive development quite often resembles the apprenticeship situation, where novice and the expert are engaged in the same problem solving (Jarvela, 1996). Although social interaction is important in learning, in the end the knowledge and skills are constructed at the individual level from personal starting points and through spontaneous action (Tudge, 1990). In the culture of schools, teachers often feel obliged to ensure that pupils learn socially accepted knowledge and skills (textbook knowledge assessed through tests) in the learning activity (Edwards & Mercer, 1987). This is epitomized in authoritative teaching methods (Wertsch, 1991), whereby the teacher controls the social interaction and other classroom actions. This mitigates against children’s collaborative construction of understanding and individual pupils may feel that they are outsiders in the learning activity. Thus, the actions of many children are in response to what they perceive to be the teacher’s expectations (Edwards & Mercer, 1987). In this kind of school setting the pupils do not necessarily feel the teaching and its content to be personally important or useful. Effective teaching requires the creation of optimal learning opportunities through pedagogical means and also the encouragement and maintenance of a ________________________________