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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TL;DR: Work, learning, and innovation in the context of actual communities and actual practices are discussed in this paper, where it is argued that the conventional descriptions of jobs mask not only the ways people work, but also significant learning and innovation generated in the informal communities-of-practice in which they work.
Abstract: Recent ethnographic studies of workplace practices indicate that the ways people actually work usually differ fundamentally from the ways organizations describe that work in manuals, training programs, organizational charts, and job descriptions. Nevertheless, organizations tend to rely on the latter in their attempts to understand and improve work practice. We examine one such study. We then relate its conclusions to compatible investigations of learning and of innovation to argue that conventional descriptions of jobs mask not only the ways people work, but also significant learning and innovation generated in the informal communities-of-practice in which they work. By reassessing work, learning, and innovation in the context of actual communities and actual practices, we suggest that the connections between these three become apparent. With a unified view of working, learning, and innovating, it should be possible to reconceive of and redesign organizations to improve all three.
8,227 citations
Cites background from "Situated Cognition and the Culture ..."
...In short, they are enculturated (Brown, Collins, and Duguid 1989)....
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...BROWN, J. S., A. COLLINS AND P. DUGUID (1989), "Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning," Education Researcher, 18, 1, 32-42....
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...…Lave and Wenger 1990) have rejected transfer models, which isolate knowledge from practice, and developed a view of learning as social construction, putting knowledge back into the contexts in which it has meaning (see also Brown, Collins, and Duguid 1989; Brown and Duguid, in press; Pea 1990)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a conceptual framework for educational technology by building on Shulman's formulation of pedagogical content knowledge and extend it to the phenomenon of teachers integrating technology into their pedagogy.
Abstract: Research in the area of educational technology has often been critiqued for a lack of theoretical grounding. In this article we propose a conceptual framework for educational technology by building on Shulman’s formulation of ‘‘pedagogical content knowledge’’ and extend it to the phenomenon of teachers integrating technology into their pedagogy. This framework is the result of 5 years of work on a program of research focused on teacher professional development and faculty development in higher education. It attempts to capture some of the essential qualities of teacher knowledge required for technology integration in teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted, and situated nature of this knowledge. We argue, briefly, that thoughtful pedagogical uses of technology require the development of a complex, situated form of knowledge that we call Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK). In doing so, we posit the complex roles of, and interplay among, three main components of learning environments: content, pedagogy, and technology. We argue that this model has much to offer to discussions of technology integration at multiple levels: theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological. In this article, we describe the theory behind our framework, provide examples of our teaching approach based upon the framework, and illustrate the methodological contributions that have resulted from this work.
7,328 citations
Book•
16 May 2003TL;DR: Good computer and video games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Pikmin, Rise of Nations, Neverwinter Nights, and Xenosaga: Episode 1 are learning machines as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Good computer and video games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Pikmin, Rise of Nations, Neverwinter Nights, and Xenosaga: Episode 1 are learning machines. They get themselves learned and learned well, so that they get played long and hard by a great many people. This is how they and their designers survive and perpetuate themselves. If a game cannot be learned and even mastered at a certain level, it won't get played by enough people, and the company that makes it will go broke. Good learning in games is a capitalist-driven Darwinian process of selection of the fittest. Of course, game designers could have solved their learning problems by making games shorter and easier, by dumbing them down, so to speak. But most gamers don't want short and easy games. Thus, designers face and largely solve an intriguing educational dilemma, one also faced by schools and workplaces: how to get people, often young people, to learn and master something that is long and challenging--and enjoy it, to boot.
7,211 citations
4,242 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an approach for teaching distance learning in Instructional Technology and Distance Learning (ITDL) courses, based on the International Journal of Instructional technology and distance learning (IITDL).
Abstract: International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning (ITDL), January 2005
4,035 citations
References
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TL;DR: Knowledge in Pieces (KiP) as mentioned in this paper is a distinctive epistemological perspective on conceptual change, employing a "modeling" approach, which consists mainly of several detailed and empirically consequential models of different kinds of knowledge, including both intuitive "preconceptions" and normative knowledge.
Abstract: Knowledge in Pieces (KiP) is a distinctive epistemological perspective on conceptual change, employing a “modeling” approach. Its theory consists mainly of several detailed and empirically consequential models of different kinds of knowledge, including both intuitive “preconceptions” and normative knowledge. This chapter offers a brief introduction to KiP centering on two core models, illustrating how they enfold multiple time-scales-from details of real-time learning to multi-year accomplishments-and how they accommodate empirically salient diversity in the way different students learn.
606 citations
TL;DR: University students were asked to draw the path a moving object would follow in several different situations, and evidenced striking misconceptions about the motion of objects.
Abstract: University students were asked to draw the path a moving object would follow in several different situations. Over half of the students, including many who had taken physics courses, evidenced striking misconceptions about the motion of objects. In particular, many students believed that even in the absence of external forces, objects would move in curved paths.
554 citations
01 Jan 1984
542 citations
"Situated Cognition and the Culture ..." refers background in this paper
...Scribner (1984) records, for instance, how complex calculations can be performed by practitioners using their environment directly....
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...For examples of recent work, see for instance, Rogoff and Lave, 1984; Scribner, 1984; Hutchins, in press; Engestrom, 1987; Lave and Wenger, in preparation; and in particular Lave, 1977, 1988a, 1988b, 1988c, in preparation....
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...Scribner (1984) recomis, for instance, how complex calculalions can be performed by practitioners using their environment directly....
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TL;DR: A study of a group of elementary school students learning to control a computer-implemented Newtonian object reveals a surprisingly uniform and detailed collection of strategies, at the core of which is a robust “Aristotelian” expectation that things should move in the direction they are last pushed.
526 citations
"Situated Cognition and the Culture ..." refers background in this paper
...diSessa, A. (1982). Unlearning Aristotelian physics: A study of knowledge-based learning....
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...We know from an extensive literature (diSessa, 1982, 1983, 1986; McCloskey, Caramazza, & Green, 1980; White, 1983) that students have many misconceptions about qualitative phenomena in physics....
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...diSessa, A. (1982). Unlearning Aristotelian physics: A study of knowledge-based learning. Cognitive Science, 6, 37-75. diSessa, A. (1983). Phenomenology and the evolution of intuition....
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TL;DR: Cognitive abilities of children in the three countries are similar, but large differences exist in the children's life in school, the attitudes and beliefs of their mothers, and the involvement of both parents and children in schoolwork.
Abstract: American kindergarten children lag behind Japanese children in their understanding of mathematics; by fifth grade they are surpassed by both Japanese and Chinese children. Efforts to isolate bases for these differences involved testing children on other achievement and cognitive tasks, interviewing mothers and teachers, and observing children in their classrooms. Cognitive abilities of children in the three countries are similar, but large differences exist in the children's life in school, the attitudes and beliefs of their mothers, and the involvement of both parents and children in schoolwork.
492 citations