Academic Technology is a university-wide resource that provides guidance and professional advice on using instructional technology in support of teaching and The Nature of Situated Learning research initiatives. Through on-site consultations, AT’s three By Paula Vincini groups—Curricular Technol0gies, n 1929 in The Aims of Education and Other Essays, noted British mathematician, logician Faculty Development and and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead protested against the way students were taught Support, and Research and I“inert” knowledge that proved useless to them when they needed to transfer it to real life problem solving. Situated learning theory provides an antidote to this type of education. Scientific Computing—work The theory behind situated learning or situated cognition arises from the fields of psychology, with the schools and faculty anthropology, sociology, and cognitive science. The seminal paper “Situated Cognition and the on how to integrate technology Culture of Learning” (www.ilt.columbia.edu/ilt/papers/JohnBrown.html) by John Seely Brown, Allan Collins, and Paul Duguid brought situated cognition to the forefront as an emerging instruction to further their educational model. In this paper, the authors criticize public schooling for separating the “knowing and doing” and research objectives. and for treating knowledge “as an integral, self-sufficient substance, theoretically independent of the situations in which it is learned and used.” Editorial Team Other theorists (Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger, Lev Vygotsky, John Dewey, and J. G. Greeno) associated with situated learning theory argue that knowledge must be taught in context and not in the abstract. Pauline Stieff Learners must use tools as practitioners use them and become “cognitive apprentices” in that Grants Specialist, AT discipline’s community and its culture. Paula Vincini The social interaction that occurs in communities of practice between experts and novices is crucial Instructional Design to the theory of situated cognition or learning. In Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Specialist, AT Participation, Lave and Wenger emphasize that novices begin learning by observing members of the Rebecca Sholes community and then slowly move from the periphery of the community to fully participating members. Faculty Development What does this mean for the design of instruction? Coordinator, AT t Learning is driven and best presented through realistic and complex problems that allow Joyita Ghosh learners to learn to think and practice like experts in the field. Volunteer, AT t Content is learned through activities that help solve the problems and not from “packages” Genevieve Haas of information organized by instructors. Freelance Writer t The instructor’s role moves from providing and structuring the information and knowledge Daniel Cogan-Drew through lectures and presentations to modeling, coaching, and scaffolding learners as they Technology Coordinator, use information and create knowledge to solve contextual real-life problems. Education Department t Situated learning environments must support active engagement, discussion, evaluation and Heather Townsend reflective thinking. Activities and assignments are often collaborative and group-based. Freelance Designer Instructional technologies can assist faculty with implementing situated learning and supporting David Kahle cognitive apprenticeships. Examples include simulations, online interactive case studies, and Director, AT Web-based learning environments. Paula Vincini is an instructional designer with over 20 years of teaching and training experience in post-secondary education. E-Government: A Course URLs for Situated Learning in Situated Learning The following resources provide extensive coverage of the history of situated learning and how it supports the development of an effective By Rebecca Sholes learning environment. In situated learning, students learn content through immersion in the activities of their discipline of study. During the fall of 2002, political science and engineering students in the new A Tutorial on Situated Learning undergraduate course, “E-Government,” examined the content This tutorial provides a historical and design of municipal government websites and thereby studied perspective of situated learning the strengths and weaknesses of online government resources. including the work of Vygotsky http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ Co-taught by Political Science Professor Kent Portney and Dewey, Ryle, and Lave, along archive/00000323/00/139.htm Professor Anselm Blumer of the Electrical Engineering and with discussions about facets of Computer Science Department, this course used muni- Transfer Research and implications cipal websites as the vehicle for getting students to of situated learning for organiza- think more directly about the situational factors tional learning. municipal officials face. Portney explains, “given Interview all the considerations at work in municipal Situated Cognition and government, the students will decide how the Learning power of the web can best be brought to bear on From the book MITECS: The MIT making government work better.” http://cognet.mit.edu/MITECS/ Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Entry/seifert Students met twice per week for lecture and Sciences that represents the discussion with Portney and once per week for a methodological and theoretical computer lab with Blumer. In the lecture classes, diversity of cognitive sciences. students examined the existing academic literature and research on e-government issues and how well the basic principles and practices of web site design work Situated Cognition and for the municipal web site genre. Blumer taught students to Problem-Based Learning: prepare a detailed design document and to program a website. Implications for Learning and Students were divided into integrated teams that included both Instruction with Technology political science and engineering students, ensuring each group The author reviews the connection www.aace.org/dl/files/JILR/ had both technical and content expertise for the project. Each between situated cognition and JILR134393.pdf team had to choose a web site from a U.S. city with a population problem-based learning and of more than 70,000, analyze it, and, finally, build their own discusses their implications to improved version of the site. By working on different cities, Portney learning and instruction with explains, the students were able to compare and contrast forms of technology. government and to see the variations. “This ability to compare and contrast information is the heart of the social sciences.” Towards a New Tradition of This is the first Political Science Online Instruction: Using course to offer students an Situated Learning Theory to explicitly practical experience. Develop Web-based Units Experiential learning usually The article highlights various www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/ means involving students in design guidelines, based on coffs00/papers/jan_herrington.pdf research. However, as Portney situated learning theory, as a points out, the interdisciplinary framework for an instructional nature of the course was differ- approach to course units on ent. By coupling technology the web. with political science content, the course reached students from two very different disci- What Service-Learning Can plines, enabling them to work Learn from Situated Learning on a common problem, to learn from each other and to draw Larry Wolfson and John Willinsky upon their different areas of expertise. Non-technical students discuss why the theory and had the opportunity to learn web authoring tools while experi- practice of situated learning www.educ.ubc.ca/faculty/ctg/ encing a unique public service learning context. Also, technical forms an appropriate model research/service.htm students who might not otherwise be interested in public affairs for focusing attention on the or becoming civically engaged learned about public service. learning claims of service-learning, and for guiding research into Rebecca Sholes is the Faculty Development Coordinator in Academic its effectiveness. Technology and a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Instructional Strategies Compiled by Paula Vincini Article Review These instructional strategies are adapted from Critical Characteristics of Situated Learning (www.ascilite.org.au/ conferences/melbourne95/smtu/papers/herrington.pdf). “Smart People or Smart case that, in a real-world Situated Learning will: Contexts? Cognition, Ability, context, knowledge is more t Provide an authentic context with authentic activities that and Talent Development in an usefully understood as “knowing reflects the way knowledge in your discipline will be used Age of Situated Approaches to about” something. Ecological in real-life. Knowing and Learning” psychology holds that perception t depends on the environment, or Provide access to expert performances and the modeling of by Sasha Barab, appearing in the “ecosystem,” rather than processes, as well as promoting the articulation of tacit Educational Psychologist, 2002 knowledge to be made explicit. the individual. Given this, Traditionally—and universally, cognition is “situated,” or t Provide multiple roles and perspectives. according to Sasha Barab, a viewed in terms of the “rela- t Support collaboration in the construction of knowledge. leading researcher in situated tionship between the learners t Build in reflection opportunities to enable abstractions from learning—cognition and learn- and the specific environment.” specific situations to be formed. ing (or “talent”) have been This leads to the idea that cognition is a collective idea, t regarded as occurring in a Provide coaching and scaffolding at critical times and help vacuum. Learners either are distributed across individuals students. or are not talented, and and resources, or that “knowing knowledge is passed from one and context are irreducibly Following are examples of activities and resources faculty use to head to another. In this article, co-constituted.” As a result, implement situated learning instructional strategies: she contends this framework learners are best served by neither accounts for the real activity theory, in which learners Case Studies ways in which knowledge is do in order to learn, but the acquired nor provides a working doing is focused on the process MyPatient.com model for contextual learning. and social context of the activity. www.mypatient.com/publicsite/home/home.jsp Rather, learning occurs as an The learning is not simply A library of interactive case studies, written and peer-reviewed interaction or “transaction” in accomplishing the task, but by medical professionals that provide an interactive, case-based a culturally organized setting. learning about the tools and approach to online continuing medical education. When classrooms are modeled environment in which it is on these settings—or, the “real accomplished. An understand- Problem-Based Learning world,”—learners can more able outgrowth of this theory is readily translate that learning legitimate peripheral participa- A Computer-Enhanced Geology Learning Environment to actual problem-solving. tion, or apprenticeship learning, www.wcer.wisc.edu/cl1/ilt/case/sandiego/sandiego.htm in which the learner is motivated Barab argues that not only to go from being a novice, Student projects use supercomputer data to solve “international does it make more sense to problems related to geology.” working at the periphery, to an view knowledge and talent expert, working at the center, within the contexts in which by the authenticity of the task. Simulations they are acquired and applied, Genevieve Haas, a part-time Developing Professional Consultancy Skills for Engineers Using but that, in fact, the two are freelance writer, is a media a Web-Based Simulated Consultancy indivisible: that is, “Cognition… relations specialist for Northeastern www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/coffs00/papers/robert_corderoy.pdf is distributed—stretched over, not divided among—mind, University in Boston. The Virtual Engineering Consultancy Company (VECC) provides body, activity and culturally engineering students with the opportunity to develop and practice organized settings.” She their consultancy skills. discusses five areas of inter- related theory, making the

AT offers consultation on other effective instructional strategies using technology. ATHelp: 617-627-2451 or [email protected] By Genevieve Haas Academic Technology Receives Grant from Mellon Foundation

TCCS’ Academic Technology Department recently received a $470,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to Q& A create a concept mapping tool to enable students and faculty to visually structure digital information. The Visual Understanding What types of simulation software would Environment (VUE) will be built using technical standards developed as part of MIT’s Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI). support situated learning? VUE is designed to support both instructors and learners. As an Simulation software for situated One example of this type of instructional tool for faculty, VUE will provide a highly flexible learning enables students to have software is Mystery Fossil: visual interface for assembling and organizing digital assets from “authentic” experiences that Physical Anthropology Laboratory the Tufts Digital Library into instructional presentations (learning would normally be costly and Exercises at www.mhhe.com/ content maps). From the learner’s perspective, VUE will allow time-consuming in “realistic” catalogs/0767411870.mhtml. students to rearrange instructional content maps or add their settings. If the software supports This combination workbook/ own content and relationship nodes to instructor presentations. the student in “thinking like an CD-ROM, “teaches students to VUE accommodates individual teaching and learning styles expert,” then it promotes a type think like a paleoanthropolo- as well as provides for learning and knowledge assessment by of cognitive apprenticeship that is gist.” Students select relevant enabling students to literally map their understanding of course further guided by the instructor’s data for fossil classification materials, before, during, and after an instructional program. coaching and support. from a larger set of data and “Tufts is a leader in integrating digital resources into teaching, then argue for their choices learning and research,” says David Kahle, Director of Academic among competing species Please send us your comments: Technology. “VUE represents an exciting approach to knowledge Academic Technology designations and phylogenies. management by allowing students and faculty to visually think 16 Dearborn Road Originated at the State with and structure content stored in the Tufts Digital Library.” Medford, MA 02155 University of New York (SUNY) Or send an email to: at Potsdam, it is available Pauline Stieff, Grants Specialist in Academic Technology, is a writer with [email protected] through McGraw-Hill. extensive development experience in the non-profit sector.

February 2003

March 2003 Austin Lecture Series Topic: Knowledge Building Professor Marlene Scardamalia Wednesday, March 5, 3:30-5:30pm Burden Lounge, Anderson Hall Seminar on Transforming Teaching with Technology Topic: E-Government: An Example of Situated Learning Professor Anslem Blumer and Professor Kent Portney Thursday, March 13, 12-1:30 pm Austin Room, Tisch Library

April 2003 Next Issue of Innovations in Learning Cognitive Tools