Situated learning

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. For example, the workplace is considered as a discernible community of practice operating as a context wherein newcomers assimilate norms, behavior, values, relationships, and beliefs. Lave and Wenger (1991) argues 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. Against the prevalent view of learning that involves the cognitive process in which individuals are respectively engaged in as learners, Lave and Wenger viewed learning as participation in the social world, suggesting learning as an integral and inseparable aspect of social practice. In their view, learning is the process by which newcomers become part of a community of practice and move toward full participation in it. Learners' participation in the community of practice always entails situated negotiation and renegotiation of meaning in the world. They understand and experience the world through the constant interactions by which they reconstruct their identity (i.e., becoming a different person) and evolve the form of their membership in the community as the relations between newcomers and old-timers who share the social practice change. In their view, motivation is situated because learners are naturally motivated by their growing value of participation and their desires to become full practitioners. Lave and Wenger assert that situated learning "is not an educational form, much less a pedagogical strategy". However, since their writing, others have advocated different pedagogies that include experiential and situated activity: • Workshops, kitchens, greenhouses and gardens used as classrooms • Stand-up role playing in the real-world setting, including most military training (much of which, though, takes a behaviorist approach) • Field trips including archaeological digs and participant-observer studies in an alien culture • On the job training including apprenticeship and cooperative education • Sports practice, music practice, and art are situated learning by definition, as the exact actions in the real setting are those of practice – with the same equipment or instruments Many of the original examples from Lave and Wenger shows how adult learners discover, shape, and make explicit their own knowledge through situated learning within a community of practice. == History ==

In the 2003 article "The Nature of Situated Learning", Paula Vincini argued that "the theory behind situated learning or situated cognition arises from the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, and cognitive science." She summarized: In 1996 John R. Anderson et al. had traced back the origin of the concept to the "cognitive revolution" in the 1960s, They argued: Vincini (2003) continued to explain, that "the social interaction that occurs in communities of practice between experts and novices is crucial to the theory of situated cognition or learning. In Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Lave and Wenger emphasize that novices begin learning by observing members of the community and then slowly move from the periphery of the community to fully participating members." == Elements ==

Put in terms developed by William Rankin, the major elements in situated learning are content (facts and processes of a task), context (situations, values, environmental cues), and community (the group where the learner will create and negotiate). Situated learning also involves participation (where a learner works together with others in order to solve a problem). Situated learning deals with how one's knowledge develops over the course of an activity and how they create and interpret. Content: In situated learning, no importance is given to the retention of the content. Rather, situated learning stresses reflective and higher-order thinking where the results are used in solving problems faced in daily life. Situated learning is thus more application-based. Context: Context provides a framework for the usage of the product or the result at the right time, place, and situation in the social, psychological and material environment. Context creates a platform to examine the learning experiences. Community: Community helps the learner to create, interpret, reflect and form meanings. It provides opportunities to share experiences among learners and also to interact. Participation: It is where the interchange of ideas, problem-solving and engagement of the learners take place. This takes place in a social setting which includes reflecting, interpreting, and negotiating among the participants of the community. == Claims ==

Situated learning means to have a thought and action which is used at the right time and place. In this approach, the content is learned through doing activities. It is dilemma-driven, it challenges the intellectual and psychomotor skills of a learner. Situated learning contributes to bringing about the relationship between classroom situations and real-life situations outside the classroom. In adult classroom, the conditions are so created that it is complex and unclear, from which they gain experiences and they learn. There are four claims by Brown, Collins, and Dugid: • Action is grounded in the concrete situations in which it occurs. • Knowledge does not transfer between tasks. • Training by abstraction is of little use. • Learning is a social phenomenon. == Implications of these claims for instruction ==

• To provide authenticated tasks in the learning environment: It is said that authenticated task involves two stages that are an objective and data in the setting also to the level of which students are performing the tasks which are authenticated. • Simulated apprenticeship: Students can become apprentices in a given discipline by gaining knowledge and skills. • Anchored instructions: It emphasizes the conditions laid by situated learning. It gives a situated context to solve the problem. • Learning communities: Change of the classroom culture from more of knowledge supplying to a learning community where students focus on knowledge building and solve problems that they are interested in. • Assessment in appropriate place: It shows an individual's performance in different situations and also focuses on the process and product. == Topics ==

Situated learning was first projected by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger as a model of learning in a community of practice. This type of learning allows an individual (students/learner) to learn by socialization, visualization, and imitation. Situated cognition and problem-based learning Learning begins with people trying to solve problems. When learning is problem-based, people explore real-life situations to find answers, or to solve the problems. Hung's study focuses on how important being social is to learning. In believing that learning is social, Hung adds that learners who gravitate to communities with shared interests tend to benefit from the knowledge of those who are more knowledgeable than they are. He also says that these social experiences provide people with authentic experiences. When students are in these real-life situations they are compelled to learn. Hung concludes that taking a problem-based learning approach to designing a curriculum carries students to a higher level of thinking. When determining whether abstract or specific instruction is going to be more productive it is important to look at which method will be most useful to the individuals that are learning the skill. If students receive specific instruction they are going to be capable of performing those set tasks only. When students are taught abstract instruction they are exposed to more skills that will be useful in helping them obtain a variety of jobs but at the same time, they may have training that is not necessarily needed. When money is "wasted" by educating individuals on things that are not needed for their future it is possible to look at the situation and realize that the monies could have been of more use in giving another individual more specific instruction. Our students are coming out of school unprepared and it seems that if they were in an educational setting where situated learning was implemented as much as possible, they would be better prepared for their futures. Based on Wagner's research we are less prepared than other countries as far as education goes, which is not necessarily something new, but it is definitely something that seems too far from changing. When our students are put into situations where they learn by doing they most likely will be more successful than if they were just told how something needed to be done. Web tools for classrooms In the 2010 article "Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms", W. Richardson stipulated: Teachers/instructors have come to realize just how important it is to utilize the web as a teaching tool for the new generation of students (digital natives). One digital tool that can be used is a weblog. It gives the students an opportunity to think, research, and realize that they can write and have a voice that can be viewed and read by many who may or may not share the same idea. When students blog, they are creating journals/text entries which are considered to be English (writing) and reading; they also have the opportunity to utilize other learning tools such as videos, photos, and other digital media. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Ning allow learners, once they move beyond the personal connections, to embrace a community where they can learn from each other. Social interaction is an important part of the learning process. Inquiry-based learning describes approaches to learning that are based on the investigation of questions, scenarios, or problems-often assisted by a facilitator. Inquiries will understand and study issues and questions to improve their knowledge or solutions. It includes problem-based learning and is used in small-scale investigation and projects as well as research. It will be much more beneficial for students because involvement in learning results in the improvement of possessing skills and attitudes that permit you to seek solutions and issues while you build your new knowledge. There are numerous web tools that support inquiry-based learning which teachers can use effectively to make all students interact in the class. Web-based learning tools are also referred to as learning objects, interactive web-based tools that support learning by enhancing, amplifying, and guiding the cognitive processes of learners. It offers two noteworthy features that can reduce the impact of potential obstacles teachers face when using technology. Firstly it is designed to focus on specific concepts, making them easy to learn and use and more attractive to busy educators who have little time to learn more complex, advanced software packages. Ease of use also makes it more palatable to teachers who are apprehensive about using technology. Secondly, a wide range of web-based learning tools exists including drill and practice assessment tools or tutorials, video case studies or supports, general web-based multimedia resources, and self-contained interactive tools in a specific content area. In contrast with other learning technologies burdened with implementation challenges and costs, web-based learning tools are readily accessible over the net and teachers need not worry about extra cost or not having the latest version. It is speculated that the broad selection of readily accessible web-based learning tools will make it easier for teachers to integrate WBLT's into a classroom environment. Some of the best interactive web tools for educators. Project-based learning Project-based learning simulates the experiences that learners would have while performing the functions required in a job, which allows the opportunity to immediately apply what they've learned and benefit from an organization's existing knowledge base. With recent advances in technology, it is possible to facilitate the social aspects of learning by virtually connecting individuals within a distributed community of practice in the online environment. While these are skills that teachers are trying to develop in young learners, adults have already developed and used these skills. They have sharpened these skills through work, higher education, raising children or through marriage. As lifelong learners dealing with real-life problems, a project-based approach is what develops when they come together with other adults at brick-and-mortar learning centers or in social networking communities on the web. == Evaluation ==

Situated learning activities are collaborative and complex therefore traditional methods of assessment are not sufficient. A few of the trends followed in evaluating the situated learning could be: • Focus on the process rather than the products: The process includes the content so this can be assessed by a few methods such as concept map and videotape coding. • Non linear measures: It means that the answers by the learner should be able to accept and defend multiple perspectives. They should measure the attitude, efficacy, perceptual skills and higher-order thinking. • Using technology: Collaboration with technology will allow to track the students activities like time spent on planning, collecting information with respect to solve a problem etc. ==See also==