Situated Learning

Three ideas emerge when you acknowl­edge, as sit­u­ated learn­ing does, that the expe­ri­ences and sit­u­a­tions in which learn­ers finds them­selves and the tools they use are inte­gral to the learn­ing process:

First, in rec­og­niz­ing that learn­ing is sit­u­ated, per­cep­tions and how those per­cep­tions are made – not mem­ory or how infor­ma­tion is processed – become the key aspects of the learn­ing process. And con­text – not any inter­nal infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing vari­able – is the prime influ­ence on how those per­cep­tions are made. Sec­ond, acknowl­edg­ing that learn­ing is pri­mar­ily a cul­tural phe­nom­e­non, moves cog­ni­tion into the social and polit­i­cal sphere, and makes rel­e­vant issues of knowl­edge and power, and the per­spec­tives of crit­i­cal, fem­i­nist and post­mod­ern thinkers. And third, the impor­tance of authen­tic expe­ri­ences means that it is much eas­ier to talk about sit­u­ated learn­ing than to design learn­ing envi­ron­ments that sup­port it. As James Greeno has noted, When we rec­og­nize that all learn­ing involves socially orga­nized activ­ity, the ques­tion is not whether to give instruc­tion in a ‘com­plex, social envi­ron­ment’ but what kinds of com­plex, social activ­i­ties to arrange, for which aspects of par­tic­i­pa­tion, and in what sequence to use them (p. 10).

See also: cog­ni­tive appren­tice­ships, anchored instruc­tion, two ways in which edu­ca­tors have put the idea of authen­tic expe­ri­ences into for­mal practice.

Cf. reflec­tive prac­tice, which also involves learn­ing from expe­ri­ence, but dif­fers in how the expe­ri­ences are interpreted.

Read­ing List

• To read
• Rec­om­mended
• You have bet­ter things to do

• John R. Ander­son, Lynne M. Reder, & Her­bert A. Simon (1996). Sit­u­ated learn­ing and edu­ca­tion. Edu­ca­tional Researcher, 1996, 25(40), 5 – 11. [Not every­one thinks that the sit­u­a­tional aspects of learn­ing are the key to under­stand­ing cognition.]
• John D. Brans­ford, Susan R. Gold­man & Nancy J. Vye. Mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in people’s abil­i­ties to think: Reflec­tions on a decade of work and some hopes for the future. In Lynn Oka­gaki and Roberts J. Stern­berg (Eds.) Direc­tors of Devel­op­ment: Influ­ences on the Devel­op­ment of Children’s Think­ing. [pre­view}
• Eric Bredo. Recon­struct­ing edu­ca­tional psy­chol­ogy: Sit­u­ated cog­ni­tion and Deweyian prag­ma­tism. Edu­ca­tional Psy­chol­o­gist, 29(1), 23 – 35, 1994.[excerpt]
• John See­ley Brown, Allan Collins & Paul. Sit­u­ated cog­ni­tion and the cul­ture of learn­ing. Edu­ca­tional Researcher, 1989, 18(1), 32 – 41. [pdf, often cred­ited with devel­op­ing sit­u­a­tion learn­ing theory]
• Jeong-Im Choi & Michael Han­nafin. Sit­u­ated cog­ni­tion and learn­ing envi­ron­ments: Roles, struc­tures, and impli­ca­tions for design. Edu­ca­tional Tech­nol­ogy Research and Devel­op­ment, 43(2), 53 – 69, 1995.
• John Dewey. Expe­ri­ence and Edu­ca­tion, 1938, 1998. [pre­view; pre­pare your­self]
• William J. Clancey. Sit­u­ated cog­ni­tion: On human knowl­edge and com­puter rep­re­sen­ta­tions, 1997. [blurb]
• Cog­ni­tive Sci­ence Spe­cial Issue: Sit­u­ated Action., 17(1), 1993.
• James G. Greeno. A per­spec­tive on think­ing. Amer­i­can Psy­chol­o­gist, 44(2), 134 – 141, 1989.
• James G. Greeno. Math­e­mat­i­cal and sci­en­tific think­ing in class­rooms and other sit­u­a­tions. In D. Halpern (Ed.) Enhanc­ing think­ing skills in the sci­ences and math­e­mat­ics, 1992. [pre­view]
• James G. Greeno. On claims that answer the wrong ques­tions. Edu­ca­tional Researcher, 26(1), 5 – 17, 1997.
• James G. Greeno. The sit­u­a­tiv­ity of know­ing, learn­ing, and research. Amer­i­can Psy­chol­o­gist, 53(1), 5 – 26, 1998.
• James G. Greeno. On claims that answer the wrong ques­tion. Edu­ca­tional Research, 26(1), 5 – 17, 1998. [A response to Ander­son et al. that aruges that the dif­fer­ence between sit­u­a­tive and cog­ni­tive views of learn­ing are more con­cep­tual than empirical]
• Mary­lynn M. Grif­fin. You can’t get there from here: Sit­u­ated learn­ing, trans­fer, and map skills. Con­tem­po­rary Edu­ca­tional Psy­chol­ogy, 2(1), 65 – 87, 1995.
• David Kir­sh­ner & James Anthony Whit­son. Sit­u­ated Cog­ni­tion: Social, semi­otic, and psy­cho­log­i­cal per­spec­tives, 16997.
• David Kir­sh­ner & James Anthony Whit­son. Edu­ca­tional Researcher, 27(8), 22 – 28, 1998. [Points to under­ly­ing issues in sit­u­ated cog­ni­tion the­ory that must be clarified]
• Jean Lave & Eti­enne Wenger. Sit­u­ated Learn­ing: Legit­i­mate Periph­eral Prac­tice, 1990. [This is the book that first intro­duced the terms ‘legit­i­mate periph­eral par­tic­i­pa­tion’ and ‘com­mu­ni­ties of prac­tice.’]
• Hilary McLel­lan. Eval­u­a­tion in a sit­u­ated learn­ing envi­ron­ment. Edu­ca­tional Tech­nol­ogy, 33(3), 39 – 45, 1993.
• Greg A. Per­fetto, John D. Brans­ford & Jef­fery J. Franks. Con­straints on access in a prob­lem solv­ing con­text. Mem­ory & Cog­ni­tion, 11(1), 24 – 31, 1983.
• David N. Perkins & Gavriel Salomon. Are cog­ni­tive skills context-bound? Edu­ca­tional Researcher, 18(1), 16 – 25, 1989.
• Edward S. Reed. Cog­ni­tion as the coop­er­a­tive appro­pri­a­tion of affor­dances. Eco­log­i­cal Psy­chol­ogy, 3(2), 135 – 158, 1991.
• Jeremy Roschelle, J. & William J. Clancey. Learn­ing as social and neural. Edu­ca­tional Psy­chol­o­gist, 27(4), 435 – 453, 1992. [online]
• Roth, W.-M. (1996). Knowl­edge dif­fu­sion in a grade 4 – 5 class­room dur­ing a unit of civil engi­neer­ing: An analy­sis of a class­room com­mu­nity in terms of its chang­ing resources and prac­tices. Cog­ni­tion and Instruc­tion, 14(2), 170 – 220.
• Wolff-Michael Roth. Where is the con­text in con­tex­tual word prob­lems?: Math­e­mat­i­cal prac­tices and prod­ucts in grade 8 stu­dents’ answers to story prob­lems. Cog­ni­tion and Instruc­tion, 14(4), 487 – 527, 1996.
• Wolff-Michael Roth & G. Michael Bowen. Know­ing and inter­act­ing: A study of cul­ture, prac­tices, and resources in a grade 8 open-inquiry sci­ence class­room guided by a cog­ni­tive appren­tice­ship metaphor. Cog­ni­tion and Instruc­tion, 13(1), 73 – 128, 1995.
• Gavriel Salo­man, David N. Perkins & Tamar Glober­son. Part­ners in cog­ni­tion: Extend­ing human intel­li­gence with intel­li­gent tech­nolo­gies. Edu­ca­tional Researcher, 20(3), 2 – 9, 1991.
• Peter Saw­chuk. Adult Learn­ing and Tech­nol­ogy in Working-Class Life, 2003 [blurb, Intro (pdf)]
• Alan H. Schoen­feld. Prob­lem solv­ing in context(s). In R. I. Charles & E. A. Sil­ver (Eds.), The teach­ing and assess­ing of math­e­mat­i­cal prob­lem solv­ing., 1988.
• Robert E. Shaw, Judith A. Effken, Brett R. Fajen, Steven R. Gar­rett & Anthony Mor­ris. An eco­log­i­cal approach to the on-line assess­ment of problem-solving paths. Instruc­tional Sci­ence, 25(2),151 – 166, 1997.
• M.T. Tur­vey, & Robert E. Shaw. Toward an eco­log­i­cal physics and a phys­i­cal psy­chol­ogy. In Robert L. Solso and Dominic W. Mas­saro (Eds.), The sci­ence of the mind: 2001 and beyond, 1995.
• Brent G. Wil­son and Karen Mad­sen Myers (2000). Sit­u­ated cog­ni­tion in the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal con­text. In D.H. Jon­nasen & S.M. Land (Eds.). The­o­ret­i­cal foun­da­tions of learn­ing envi­ron­ments. [online]
• Michael F. Young. Instruc­tional design for sit­u­ated learn­ing. Edu­ca­tional Tech­nol­ogy Research and Devel­op­ment, 41(1), 43 – 58, 1993.
• Michael F. Young, Jonna M. Kulikowich & Sasha A. Barab. The unit of analy­sis for sit­u­ated assess­ment. Instruc­tional Sci­ence, 25(2), 133 – 150, 1997.
• Michael Young & M. McNeese. A Sit­u­ated Cog­ni­tion Approach to Prob­lem Solv­ing. In J. Flach, P. Han­cock, J. Caid, & K. Vicente (Eds.) The Ecol­ogy of Human-Machine Sys­tems, 1995.

Hat tip: Dr. Sasha Barab SitCog Syl­labus.