This week’s principle, the Knowledge Principle, directly echoes the main point of Brown, Collins, and Duguid’s 1989 research on situated cognition: students learn best when they learn to use the tools of a community while being immersed in the authentic activity and culture of that community. The classroom activities within school culture do not always reflect the activities done by authentic practitioners. Where else may students use math word problems outside the context of the math classroom? Will the declension of a Latin noun help you get a job after you graduate? Students are left not sure when and how they will use this arcane knowledge in a real world context.
Situated cognition research also suggests that knowledge is not assembled via piecemeal lessons. Learning happens through consistent use of the knowledge, or conceptual tool, situated in the context of a specific community. The more concepts are applied, or activated through different contexts, the greater the understanding of a concept is. Each activity done to teach a concept either forms or adds to conceptual knowledge, thus increasing the number of representations that a student has of that concept.
I learned about the human brain’s learning networks this past spring. The big takeaway was that learning occurs when connections are activated between and within the three learning works. The more ways we have to conceive of a representation of a concept, the more neural pathways are activated. This idea loops back to what we know about tools: students must be immersed in and form connections with community learning in order to learn the authentic use of that tool. Our brains will not form those connections if knowledge is separated from an authentic context. Compare the students who learned new vocabulary from a dictionary to students who learned from engaging in conversation. Learning to use a new word in an authentic context is much more valuable than writing nonsense sentences on a sheet of paper, which will only end up in a binder.
Finally, we learned about two lesson design processes this week that relate to the tools and activities ideas of situated cognition research. Considering the structure, process, and discourse (SPD) of a discipline enables teachers to explore what people in a particular field actually do. The disciplinary SPDs may then be applied to the classroom context by considering what practitioner activities can be translated into student learning activities. Authentic, building knowledge, constructing, and sharing activities (ABCS) enable students to develop different areas of cognition by engaging in the environment, problem-solving, opportunities, and knowledge that are used by experts. Working with another classmate, we processed a set of economics SOLs into the SPD and ABCS that might be used in a real classroom; we analyzed the SPDs of an economist and turned those into authentic, classroom-based activities to support learning within a realistic community of economists. When we can see the current school culture as a problem, we can approach lesson design via a problem-solving lens. The SPD and ABCS are processes that educators can use to develop authentic concepts and activities within the expert culture.
Situated cognition research also suggests that knowledge is not assembled via piecemeal lessons. Learning happens through consistent use of the knowledge, or conceptual tool, situated in the context of a specific community. The more concepts are applied, or activated through different contexts, the greater the understanding of a concept is. Each activity done to teach a concept either forms or adds to conceptual knowledge, thus increasing the number of representations that a student has of that concept.
I learned about the human brain’s learning networks this past spring. The big takeaway was that learning occurs when connections are activated between and within the three learning works. The more ways we have to conceive of a representation of a concept, the more neural pathways are activated. This idea loops back to what we know about tools: students must be immersed in and form connections with community learning in order to learn the authentic use of that tool. Our brains will not form those connections if knowledge is separated from an authentic context. Compare the students who learned new vocabulary from a dictionary to students who learned from engaging in conversation. Learning to use a new word in an authentic context is much more valuable than writing nonsense sentences on a sheet of paper, which will only end up in a binder.
Finally, we learned about two lesson design processes this week that relate to the tools and activities ideas of situated cognition research. Considering the structure, process, and discourse (SPD) of a discipline enables teachers to explore what people in a particular field actually do. The disciplinary SPDs may then be applied to the classroom context by considering what practitioner activities can be translated into student learning activities. Authentic, building knowledge, constructing, and sharing activities (ABCS) enable students to develop different areas of cognition by engaging in the environment, problem-solving, opportunities, and knowledge that are used by experts. Working with another classmate, we processed a set of economics SOLs into the SPD and ABCS that might be used in a real classroom; we analyzed the SPDs of an economist and turned those into authentic, classroom-based activities to support learning within a realistic community of economists. When we can see the current school culture as a problem, we can approach lesson design via a problem-solving lens. The SPD and ABCS are processes that educators can use to develop authentic concepts and activities within the expert culture.
Nicely put Caitlyn. I feel we hit on some of the same points when talking about situated cognition. I also found it interesting in the part you talked about connections in the human brain. Definitely something to think about when planning lessons in my classroom.
ReplyDeleteHow funny that we ended up creating Vygotsky's brain in class last week! I also try to remember that our students are very much so still *developing* human beings, and that their powers of reasoning, impulse control, and maturity are not at the adult level yet. Going beyond the content, this helps me to empathize as I decide how to frame a lesson or respond to less-than-desirable behavior.
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