Exploring Constructionist Pathways for Generative AI in Education

In this study, we aim to better understand the effects of generative AI within a constructionist learning design. We explore participants’ experiences in a graduate level course on Artificial Intelligence in Education, where generative AI is studied as: a cultural object to understand and critically evaluate, an interactive learning technology, and a creative material generator. Students explored AI in education via Python, philosophical and empirical scholarship, and generative AI. They applied this knowledge to the design and prototyping of a learning technology related to their professional backgrounds and interests. Methodologically, our study offers an ethnographic description of constructionist approaches to learning about and with generative AI. Our findings indicate that situating generative AI as a cultural object, alongside a constructionist design where students use it as both creative material and learning technology, supports students in forming their own creative responses to the question of what to do with generative AI.