Situated learning

Situated learning is a theory on how individuals acquire professional skills, extending research on apprenticeship into how legitimate peripheral participation leads to membership in a community of practice. Situated learning 'takes as its focus the relationship between learning and the social situation in which it occurs'.The seminal paper “Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning” by John Seely Brown, Allan Collins, and Paul Duguid brought situated cognition to the forefront as an emerging instruction model. In this paper, the authors criticize public schooling for separating the “knowing and doing” and for treating knowledge “as an integral, self-sufficient substance, theoretically independent of the situations in which it is learned and used.”Other theorists (Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger, Lev Vygotsky, John Dewey, and J. G. Greeno) associated with situated learning theory argue that knowledge must be taught in context and not in the abstract. Learners must use tools as practitioners use them and become “cognitive apprentices” in that discipline’s community and its culture.Following on the so-called 'cognitive revolution' in psychology that began in the 1960s, education, and particularly mathematics and science education, has been acquiring new insights from psychology, and new approaches and instructional techniques based on these insights. At the same time, cognitive psychologists have being paying increasing attention to education as an area of application of psychological knowledge and as a source of important research problems. There is every reason to believe that as research in cognitive psychology progresses and increasingly addresses itself to educational issues, even closer and more productive links can be formed between psychology and mathematics education.However, there is a tendency now to present all manner of educational opinion as bearing a stamp of approval from cognitive psychology.... as in many recent publications in mathematics education, much of what is described in that book reflects two movements, 'situated learning' and 'constructivism', which have been gaining influence on thinking about education and educational research.The pedagogy of the lifelong-learning era is evolving toward reliance on interaction. Sometimes this involves interacting with a rich technological environment such as a computer tutor or a game on the web and sometimes with other people by means of a computer network. The pedagogy of computer tutors echoes the apprenticeship model in setting individualized tasks for learners and offering guidance and feedback as they work.... an understanding of video games as learning environments is becoming increasingly important as gaming culture rivals schooling for the attention of children and adolescents across the world. James Paul Gee argues that the compelling nature of video game participation is in part due to the underlying social, cognitive, and developmental learning principles around which successful games are built. With this perspective, games and gaming can be a source for inspiration in building more effective learning environments.Instruction must be situated in an authentic context that resembles that of the classroom teacher to enrich their learning process by providing realistic experiences that more easily transfer.When today's students enter their post-education professional lives, odds are pretty good that they will be asked to work with others from around the globe collaboratively to create content for diverse and wide-ranging audiences. Odds are also pretty good that they are going to need to read and write effectively in linked environments as they locate, analyze, remix, and share the best, most relevant content online for their own learning.Almost any job-related skill can be taught by practicing the skill, and computer simulations can create immersive environments where the target skills are necessary for solving engaging problems.The learning environment needs to provide ill-defined activities which have real-world relevance, and which present a single complex task to be completed over a sustained period of time, rather than a series of shorter disconnected examples.... learning embedded in rich situations assists adult learners to reflect on their actions, and discuss issues and problems with fellow members of a learning community.Learning centers are also making an impact on career education…Most of the participants are minorities, and a large proportion are African-American and Hispanic women. They range in age from 13 to 91, half of them between 20 and 31 years of age, but with a large number of teenagers as well. Most come to learn job skills and take classes at the centers, as well as to use the Internet facilities.The issue of choosing between very abstract and very specific instruction can be viewed in the following way. If abstract training is given, learners must also absorb the money and time costs of obtaining supplemental training for each distinct application. But if very specific training is given, they must completely retrain for each application...).In the world of academics and policy wonks, however, a growing number of alarmist studies have appeared over the last several years about how much more unprepared young Americans are for the demands of work today than was the case twenty years ago. Workers entering the labor force in the United States are less educated than young people in many other countries...The act of writing in a Weblog, or 'blogging' can go a long way toward teaching skills such as research, organizations and the synthesis of ideas.Networked learning, in contrast, is committed to a vision of the social that stresses cooperation, interactivity, mutual benefit, and social engagement. The power of ten working interactively will invariably outstrip the power of one looking to beat out the other nine.By the creation of visualizations, students learn to use different types of computer applications that will be useful as they select a direction for their future study.Research shows that learners not only respond by feeding back information, but they also actively use what they know to explore, negotiate, interpret, and create. They construct solutions, thus shifting the emphasis toward the process of learning. Situated learning is a theory on how individuals acquire professional skills, extending research on apprenticeship into how legitimate peripheral participation leads to membership in a community of practice. Situated learning 'takes as its focus the relationship between learning and the social situation in which it occurs'. The perspective can be contrasted with alternative views of learning: 'Rather than defining as the acquisition of propositional knowledge, Lave and Wenger situated learning in certain forms of social co-participation. Rather than asking what kinds of cognitive processes and conceptual structures are involved, they ask what kinds of social engagements provide the proper context for learning to take place'. Situated learning was first proposed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger as a model of learning in a community of practice. At its simplest, situated learning is learning that takes place in the same context in which it is applied. Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that learning is a social process whereby knowledge is co-constructed; they suggest that such learning is situated in a specific context and embedded within a particular social and physical environment.