Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning
01 Jan 1989-Educational Researcher (American Educational Research Association (AERA))-Vol. 18, Iss: 1, pp 32-42
TL;DR: Collins, Brown, and Newman as mentioned in this paper argue that knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is developed and used, and propose cognitive apprenticeship as an alternative to conventional practices.
Abstract: Many teaching practices implicitly assume that conceptual knowledge can be abstracted from the situations in which it is learned and used. This article argues that this assumption inevitably limits the effectiveness of such practices. Drawing on recent research into cognition as it is manifest in everyday activity, the authors argue that knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is developed and used. They discuss how this view of knowledge affects our understanding of learning, and they note that conventional schooling too often ignores the influence of school culture on what is learned in school. As an alternative to conventional practices, they propose cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown, & Newman, in press), which honors the situated nature of knowledge. They examine two examples of mathematics instruction that exhibit certain key features of this approach to teaching.
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01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: Constructivism! The increase in frequency with which this word appears in the discourse of educational research, theory, and policy is truly remarkable as mentioned in this paper. Unfortunately much of the discussion is at the level of slogan and cliche even bromide, and any approach that is other than constructivist is characterized as promoting passive, rote and sterile learning.
Abstract: Constructivism! The increase in frequency with which this word appears in the discourse of educational research, theory, and policy is truly remarkable. Unfortunately much of the discussion is at the level of slogan and cliche even bromide. "Students should construct their own knowledge" is being reverentially chanted throughout the halls of many a school/college/department of education these days, and any approach that is other than constructivist is characterized as promoting passive, rote, and sterile learning. For example, consider Rogoff's (1994) description of what she calls the adult-run model of how learning occurs:
1,743 citations
Cites background from "Situated Cognition and the Culture ..."
...The mentor acknowledges that the protege has apprentice model advocated by Brown et al. (1989). Of the intellectual freedom to adopt and modify the course, this view is not much different from the traditional pedagogical orientation of his or her choice (Fosnot, view of learning....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe learning with media as a complementary process within which representations are constructed and procedures performed, sometimes by the learner and sometimes by a medium, and the effect of media characteristics on the structure, formation, and modification of mental models is discussed.
Abstract: This article describes learning with media as a complementary process within which representations are constructed and procedures performed, sometimes by the learner and sometimes by the medium It reviews research on learning with books, television, computers, and multimedia environments These media are distinguished by cognitively relevant characteristics of their technologies, symbol systems, and processing capabilities Studies are examined that illustrate how these characteristics, and the instructional designs that employ them, interact with learner and task characteristics to influence the structure of mental representations and cognitive processes Of specific interest is the effect of media characteristics on the structure, formation, and modification of mental models Implications for research and practice are discussed
1,664 citations
Cites background from "Situated Cognition and the Culture ..."
...Not directly addressed by this review is information embedded in what are sometimes called "authentic situations" ( Brown, Collins, and Duguid, 1989 ), though the thesis developed in this paper complements learning in such situations....
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01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: A summary of research on PBL by Center for Excellence in Leadership for Learning at University of Indianapolis indicates that PBL has a positive effect on student content knowledge and the development of skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving; benefits students by increasing their motivation and engagement; and is challenging for teachers to implement as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: A summary of research on PBL by Center for Excellence in Leadership for Learning at University of Indianapolis indicates that PBL: (a) has a positive effect on student content knowledge and the development of skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving; (b) benefits students by increasing their motivation and engagement; and (c) is challenging for teachers to implement, leading to the conclusion that teachers need support in order to plan and enact PBL effectively while students need support including help setting up and directing initial inquiry, organizing their time to complete tasks, and integrating technology into projects in meaningful ways (Brush & Saye, 2008; Krajcik, et al., 1998).
1,650 citations
TL;DR: This article developed a cognitive framework to characterize sense-making in the implementation process that is especially relevant for recent education policy initiatives, such as standards-based reforms that press for tremendous changes in classroom instruction.
Abstract: Education policy faces a familiar public policy challenge: Local implementation is difficult. In this article we develop a cognitive framework to characterize sense-making in the implementation process that is especially relevant for recent education policy initiatives, such as standards-based reforms that press for tremendous changes in classroom instruction. From a cognitive perspective, a key dimension of the implementation process is whether, and in what ways, implementing agents come to understand their practice, potentially changing their beliefs and attitudes in the process. We draw on theoretical and empirical literature to develop a cognitive perspective on implementation. We review the contribution of cognitive science frames to implementation research and identify areas where cognitive science can make additional contributions.
1,638 citations
Cites background from "Situated Cognition and the Culture ..."
...Social interactions can aid sense-making not only because individuals learn from one another but also because group interactions bring insights and perspectives to the surface that otherwise might not be made visible to the group (Brown & Campione, 1990; Brown et al., 1989)....
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TL;DR: A new model based on grounded theory building for analyzing the quality of CMC interactions and learning experiences is proposed and developed after proposing a new definition of “interaction” for the CMC context and after analyzing interactions that occurred in a Global Online Debate.
Abstract: This study attempts to find appropriate interaction analysis/content analysis techniques that assist in examining the negotiation of meaning and co-construction of knowledge in collaborative learni...
1,578 citations
Cites background from "Situated Cognition and the Culture ..."
...This and the previous quote exemplifies the process of cognitive apprenticeship [19]....
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..., that of Brown, Collins, and Duguid [19]) is "communities of practice" where learning is seen as a construction of a social unit that shares a stake in a common situation....
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References
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Book•
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: This work has shown that legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice is not confined to midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, non-drinking alcoholics and the like.
Abstract: In this important theoretical treatist, Jean Lave, anthropologist, and Etienne Wenger, computer scientist, push forward the notion of situated learning - that learning is fundamentally a social process. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. LPP provides a way to speak about crucial relations between newcomers and old-timers and about their activities, identities, artefacts, knowledge and practice. The communities discussed in the book are midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, and recovering alcoholics, however, the process by which participants in those communities learn can be generalised to other social groups.
43,846 citations
TL;DR: In this article, two instructional studies directed at the comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities of seventh grade poor comprehenders are reported, and the training method was that of reciprocal teaching, where the tutor and students took turns leading a dialogue centered on pertinent features of the text.
Abstract: Two instructional studies directed at the comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities of seventh grade poor comprehenders are reported. The four study activities were summarizing (self-review), questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The training method was that of reciprocal teaching, where the tutor and students took turns leading a dialogue centered on pertinent features of the text. In Study 1, a comparison between the reciprocal teaching method and a second intervention modeled on typical classroom practice resulted in greater gains and maintenance over time for the reciprocal procedure. Reciprocal teaching, with an adult model guiding the student to interact with the text in more sophisticated ways, led to a significant improvement in the quality of the summaries and questions. It also led to sizable gains on criterion tests of comprehension, reliable maintenance over time, generalization to classroom comprehension tests, transfer to novel tasks that tapped the trained skills of...
5,127 citations
TL;DR: This paper proposes the development of a new cognitive apprenticeship to teach students the thinking and problem-solving skills involved in school subjects such as reading, writing and mathematics.
Abstract: : Even today, many complex and important skills, such as those required for language use and social interaction, are learned informally through apprenticeshiplike methods -- i.e., methods involving not didactic teaching, but observation, coaching, and successive approximation while carrying out a variety of tasks and activities. The differences between formal schooling and apprenticeship methods are many, but for our purposes, one is most important. Perhaps as a by-product of the specialization of learning in schools, skills and knowledge taught in schools have become abstracted from their uses in the world. In apprenticeship learning, on the other hand, target skills are not only continually in use by skilled practitioners, but are instrumental to the accomplishment of meaningful tasks. Said differently, apprenticeship embeds the learning of skills and knowledge in the social and functional context of their use. This difference is not academic, but has serious implications for the nature of the knowledge that students acquire. This paper attempts to elucidate some of those implications through a proposal for the retooling of apprenticeship methods for the teaching and learning of cognitive skills. Specifically, we propose the development of a new cognitive apprenticeship to teach students the thinking and problem-solving skills involved in school subjects such as reading, writing and mathematics.
4,586 citations