As this EF Explore America video (2012) shows, in our recent years we have been living in an increasing collaborative/participatory world. And yet usually our educational institutions and textbooks are not constructed for social learning. As educators, we have to explore new learning models that embrace social learning. One of these models is situated cognition (or situated learning), a constructivist approach to learning.

Situated learning emphasizes the importance of context and interaction in the process of construction of knowledge. Jean Lave’s Cognition in Practice (1988) is generally considered a founding reference for the theory. Lave, a social anthropologist, collaborated also with Etienne Wenger, a researcher in artificial intelligence, to refine this learning theory (1990). They researched apprentices’ cognition in their different fields observing and studying communities of practices where people acquire knowledge, competence, and professionalism in real life, outside of formal educational settings.

In formal education most of the learning activities are based on abstract knowledge, and tasks are usually out of their real contexts. Instead, within the situated learning model students learn by doing: learning is usually an unintentional process, a natural derivation of an authentic interaction.

For example, while language learners can use online flash cards or a dictionary to increase their vocabulary, this solitary work only teaches basic parts of learning a language. Talking with someone who is a native speaker, instead will show learners important aspects of how these words are used in the native speaker’s home culture and how the words are used in everyday social interactions.

Situated learning main principles are:

• Learning occurs as a function of the activity, context, and culture in which it occurs or situated
• Social interaction is the key of situated learning
• Learning tasks must be presented within authentic contexts
• Learning requires collaboration and recursive feedbacks
• Learning is facilitated and encouraged when scaffolding is available

As an alternative to conventional schooling practices, Brown, Collins, and Duguid (1989) propose “cognitive apprenticeship‟, which tries to enculturate students into authentic practices through activities and social interactions, similar to craft apprenticeship.

The novice interacts with the other members, moving from the periphery to the center of the circle in becoming an expert. This process is called "legitimate peripheral participation", which means that the novice, who is at the margins of the community of practice, must be involved in the authentic practices of that activity, usually carried out by the experts. This “participation” gives the novice a role that, although peripheral, is still a legitimate one; it enables them to participate in the authentic practices of the community of practice and learn. Moreover, the learner motivation and the meaning of learning develop through the process of becoming a full-time participant in a socio-cultural practice. This social process includes learning skills. Participating in non-authentic practices would not allow them to learn. John Abbott, The 21st Century Learning Initiative's founder and research curator, explains clearly what is cognitive apprenticeship in the video below.

The general feature of situated cognition is the positioning of individual cognition in a broader physical and social context of interactions, tools, and culturally constructed meanings, as the construction of meaning is a social activity. This model is part of the e-learning ecologies because it includes collaborative intelligence, intrinsic motivation and performance-based assessment that Cole and Kalantzis explain in their video lessons.

• Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics, and culture in everyday life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1990). Situated Learning: Legitimate Periperal Participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational researcher, 18(1), 32-42.
• Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis (eds), e-Learning Ecologies, 2016, forthcoming)

MORE REFERENCES

Oregon Technology in Education Council (OTEC) (2007). Situated Learning (From: Theories and Transfer of Learning. http://otec.uoregon.edu/learning_theory.htm#SituatedLearning

Stein, D. (1998). Situated learning in adult education. http://www.ericdigests.org/1998-3/adult-education.html