What does “do something” mean

I came across those post urging educators to make certain learners “do something“. I suppose this could be described as the core principle of the constructionist (not constructivist) school of thought. Doing something needs to be interpreted carefully. What you do to learn must involve thinking and not necessarily physical action. This is the case whether the learning activity involves worksheets or project-based learning. Do the worksheet tasks require the student to apply information or simply recall? Does the project require a physical task that requires the application of information in a way that is efficient? Neither approach guarantees the necessary cognitive behavior just because the tasks are assigned. Physical activity may be very inefficient and possibly ineffective if what is done externally is not based on productive thinking activities.

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