Abstract
How one intends to use computers to aid learning depends in a dramatic way on what one thinks is important in learning. In this chapter I outline a central theme of my work with computers and learning which follows from certain empirically and theoretically driven predilections concerning the nature of knowledge and its development. The fundamental question is: How do we view the transition
from commonsense reasoning about the physical world to scientific understand ing? Leaving aside the nonconstructivist äccretion" model -- new knowledge by
transmission from textbook or teacher -- there are still very different views of learning that motivate different approaches to the uses of computers.
My own view is that the transition to scientific understanding involves a major structural change toward systematicity, rather than simply a shift in con
tent. After outlining this view by contrasting it with another that presumes a more evenhanded trade of content from prescientific to scientific apprehension, I will discuss uses of computers that follow more or less directly from the structural-change perspective.
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