Reality By Design

<p>In the first paragraphs of this volume the author identifies an authenticity paradox: that the purported real-worldedness of a learning environment technique or task is so rhetorically potent that educators frequently call attention to it in pedagogical conversations to legitimize their undertakings while at the same time terms such as real-world and authentic do not require (and even resist) precise delineation.<br><br> Using the language of authenticity as a keyhole through which to view contemporary educational theory Petraglia draws on theories of cognition education and knowledge to articulate the interdisciplinarity of constructivism and to expose the unsettling combination of constructivism's social scientific and epistemological commitments. He argues that a full-bodied embrace of constructivist theory requires that educators forgo knowledge as we know it and recommends a rhetorical approach to constructivist instruction that recognizes the cultural social and behavioral practices which play an enormous role in defining learners' real worlds. Applying this critique to the field of educational technology the author does not merely lament constructivist theory's current shortcomings but offers a means by which these shortcomings can be engaged and perhaps overcome.</p>