Constructionism
Also: constructionist learning
Seymour Papert's theory that we build knowledge most effectively while building things in the world.
Constructionism is the learning theory developed by Seymour Papert, built on Jean Piaget's constructivism. Where Piaget described how children construct knowledge in their minds, Papert added a deliberately concrete twist: this happens "especially felicitously" when the learner is building something external — a sandcastle, a poem, a program, a robot — that they can show, share, and reflect on.
The slogan is learning-by-making. A child debugging a Logo program is not just absorbing facts about geometry; they are building a relationship with ideas, testing them, and owning them. Knowledge that you assemble yourself, in pursuit of something you care about, sticks in a way that transmitted knowledge rarely does.
Constructionism reframes the computer's role in education. The point is not the computer programming the child — drill-and-practice software delivering "the curriculum" — but the child programming the computer, and in doing so "acquiring a sense of mastery over a piece of the most modern and powerful technology."
See the essay What Is Constructionism? and Papert's Mindstorms (1980).