Psychology
Document Type
Article
Abstract
The growing presence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in educational practice raises questions about how learners and educators live with AI and reshapes questions about how learning unfolds across contemporary learning environments. Although research on AI in education has expanded quickly, much of this work continues to frame GenAI in technocentric and static terms, as a tool to be evaluated, rather than as a relational and developmental presence within learners' trajectories. Drawing on constructionist learning theory and post-Cartesian metatheoretical perspectives, this mini review suggests that such framings are insufficient for understanding how learning is enacted in AI-mediated contexts. We propose that GenAI must be conceptualized as a co-constructive presence within sociotechnical learning ecologies. Considering constructionism within a metatheoretical framework embracing process-relational ontology, we highlight implications for studying learning as an emergent and contextually situated process. Methodologically, this reframing calls for process-sensitive approaches that attend to temporality, interaction, and the negotiation of agency and identity. Such approaches include embodied and design-based research, post-phenomenological methods, and positioning analysis, each suited to capturing how learners come to live with GenAI over time. © 2026 Lee and Budwig.
Publication Title
Frontiers in Education
Publication Date
2026
Volume
11
ISSN
2504-284X
DOI
10.3389/feduc.2026.1797580
Keywords
constructionism, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), human-AI interaction (HAII), learning, process-oriented methodologies, process-relational ontology, sociotechnical learning ecologies
Repository Citation
Lee, Jimin and Budwig, Nancy, "Living with generative AI: considering constructionist approaches to learning and methodological implications of process ontologies" (2026). Psychology. 1005.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_psychology/1005
Cross Post Location
Student Publications
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright Conditions
Lee, J., & Budwig, N. (2026, April). Living with generative AI: considering constructionist approaches to learning and methodological implications of process ontologies. In Frontiers in Education (Vol. 11, p. 1797580). Frontiers Media SA. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1797580
