Transcript The Situative Perspective in Educational Psychology

Situative Cognition in
Educational Psychology
Ed Tech Masters Program
Summer 2003
What is Situative Cognition?
Also known as Situated, Sociohistoric or
Socicultural.
The fields of ethnography, sociolinguistics,
anthropology, and sociology contributed to this
perspective.
Learning is tied to the context or situation,
students’ culture shapes their cognitive
development, learning is highly social.
What is Situative Cognition? II
Situative cognition focuses more on the
social rather than the individual as cognitive
psychology tends to do; All learning is
social.
“Views knowledge as distributed among
people and their environments, including
the objects, artifacts, tools, books, and the
communities of which they are a part.” –
Greeno, Collins, & Resnick, 1996
Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1933)
A Russian psychologist, Vygotsky
worked in the post-revolutionary
Soviet Union to rebuild psychology
along Marxist lines. He worked to apply
psychology to the problems confronting the new
state, especially in the field of ed psych.
Vygotsky’s writings were banned in the Soviet
Union in 1936 and only became available in the
west in the 1960’s at which point they became
highly influential.
Vygotsky Continued
Unlike Piaget’s image of the individual
constructing understanding alone, Vygotsky
saw cognitive development as depending
more on interactions with the people and
tools in the child’s world.
Tools are real: pens, paper, computers; or
symbols: language, math systems, signs
...and more Vygotsky
Vygotsky developed the theory of the Zone
of proximal development
This is the distance between where a learner is
at developmentally on their own and where a
learner could be with the help of a more
knowledgeable other.
A more knowledgeable other can be an adult or
a peer, helping a learner scaffold their learning.
Learning
Two main elements of learning in situated
cognition:
1. All learning is social and happens within a
community through participation.
2. Learning is tied to its situation or context.
More on Learning
Learning occurs through participation in a
group, all learning is social.
New participants initially observe and
participate peripherally, as they gain experience
they become more central participants.
This is an apprentice approach to learning.
“Cognitive apprenticeship” – Collins, Brown, &
Newman (1989)
…and more on Learning
Collins (1988) defines situated learning as
“the notion of learning knowledge and skills
in contexts that reflect the way the
knowledge will be useful in real life”
Examples of situated learning:
Weight watcher programs
Grocery store math
Brazilian street kids’ math when making sales
on the street
Transfer
According to situated cognition, knowledge
does not transfer between tasks.
Teaching through abstraction is of little use
since real learning occurs in authentic
situations only
Ex: New police academy grads being told by
experienced cops “now forget everything you
learned”.
Veteran teachers telling new teachers to ignore
new reforms because ‘this too shall pass’.
More on Transfer
If learning is being able to participate in a
community of practice, the issue of transfer
can be problematic.
Does transfer apply to new practices within a
community (e.g. new math problems) or to
practices outside the community (e.g. work) ?
Many resources and supports in one
community don’t carry over to a different
community.
Motivation
The situative view emphasizes how people’s
identities are formed by their participation
in a group.
According to this way of thinking, students can
be motivated to learn by participating in
communities where learning is valued.
Ex: Children want to learn to read and write to
become members of the “literary club”, to be
able to participate and interact with the written
world.
Critiques of Situative Cognition
While the theory takes into account the
social, the individual tends to be ignored.
Transfer is problematic since knowledge
doesn’t transfer between tasks.
The theory can’t account for learning
through abstraction or generalization (most
school learning)
Situative Cognition in Education
Knowing how to participate in social
practices has a large role in schools.
Classroom activities are often organized as
social groups and children participate in these
groups with varying degrees of success.
Much of students’ identities are formed by the
groups they participate in at school, e.g. sports,
chess, journalism, A.P. classes ...
Situative Cognition in Education II
A push for “authentic learning” where
students learn content matter that is situated
in a real world context (ex: Resnick article)
Students are encouraged to think and work like
scientists, historians, mathematicians, etc.
Encouraging classrooms to create a
community of learning that promotes
inquiry and development of identities.