Situated cognition

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Situated cognition

• Looking at the basis of scenario-based instruction

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How should we talk about teaching or instruction?

• Do we impart knowledge?
• Do we direct and guide learners?
• Do we shape the learning process?
• Do we represent knowledge?
• Do we create an environment for learning?

3
What is a pedagogical approach?

• We need to examine our attitudes and conceptions
  of the teaching process.
• What are our expectations from how we were
  taught?
• What concepts or theories of teaching are
  comfortable for us?

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Examining Pedagogy

• Derived from the Greek words for
• child ( pais ? paed ? ped )
• leader ( agogos )
• Has come to mean the art and science of teaching.
• as art it is the application of techniques for
  effectively imparting knowledge.
• as science it is a body of organized concepts and
  principles for guiding the instructional process.

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Androgogy

• Suggested by Malcom Knowles (1970). The Modern
  Practice of Adult Education. Association Press,
  New York.
• Derived from Greek words for
• man ( andro )
• leader ( agogos )
• Approaches for teaching children not appropriate
  for teaching adults.

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What do you want as adult learners?
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Four assumptions of adult learners
Based on Knowles

• Self-directed
• Experiences are a resource for learning
• Learning based on social roles
• Learning is problem-oriented and immediate

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Being self-directed

• Adult learners see themselves as producers or
  doers
• They value their performance as workers
• As such they want to be involved in the learning
  process through self-evaluation
• need a model of ideal performance
• need diagnostic experiences
• need help with comparing current performance with
  desired performance

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Use prior experience

• New learning has meaning as it can relate to
  prior experience
• Use approaches that tap prior experience
• case studies
• role playing
• simulation
• skill exercises
• Emphasize practical application

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Social context for learning

• Adult readiness to learn is tied to social roles
• first job
• managing a home
• career development
• civic responsibilities

• Cultural setting
• professional community
• organizational community

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Orientation to learn

• Concerns of ones organization
• Concerns of ones job
• Concerns of ones career
• Problem focused
• subjects are subsumed under practical concerns
• future problems or concerns need to be articulated

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Teaching for adults

• Return to the question How should we look at
  adult learning?
• Imparting knowledge to learners, or as
• Guiding the studies of learners, or as
• Creating learning environments

• Or as all three

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Evolving perspective of instructional design

• Analysis of a discipline
• Analysis of outcomes
• Analysis of learning situations

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Analysis of a discipline

• Traditional view going back to Aristotelian
  concepts of the mind
• mind is a tabla rasa
• reality is out there to know
• Need to properly represent content that permits
  development of efficient and effective
  instructional sequences
• Focus on stimulus conditions

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Associative learning
?
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Influences ofassociative learning

• Importance of stimulus conditions
• Conditions of learning specific conditions lead
  to specific learning outcomes
• Prerequisite knowledge
• Direct instruction to convey ideas

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Analysis of outcomes

• Behavioral outcomes
• elicit desired responses or actions
• no assumptions about mental processes
• focus on the results of responding
• Thinking (cogntive) outcomes
• Mental operations
• Mental representation

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Behavioral learning
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Influences of behaviorist approach

• Focus on desired behavior behavioral objectives
• Complex tasks are broken into smaller tasks to be
  mastered separately
• Minimize errors
• Immediate reinforcement of correct behavior
• Learning by doing, repeated practice

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Cognitive learning
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Influences of information processing approach

• Expert vs. Novice knowledge and performance
  strategies
• Task/content representations
• Flowcharts, concept maps, etc.
• Managing memory load
• chunking information, sequencing instruction
• Elaboration
• creating links to prior knowledge

22
Situated cognition
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Analysis of learning situations

• Learning is a combination of physical, cognitive
  and social factors
• Knowledge derives from the relation of an
  individual and a social or physical situation
• Rather than an objective reality out there, there
  is a constructed reality in the mind
• Learning derives from participation in the
  practices of the culture

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Learning is the consequence of

• A complex interplay between variability in the
  individual and variability in the environment

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Situated learning

• Cognitive Apprenticeship
• Communities of Practice/Stories
• Authentic Practice
• tools and artifacts
• Reflection
• Multiple Practice

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Cognitive apprenticeship

• Layers situated cognition onto other forms of
  learning
• Content
• Methods
• Sequence
• Sociology

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Implementing cognitive apprenticeship
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Implementing cognitive apprenticeship
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Communities of practice/ stories

• Legitimate peripheral participation serves to
  help learners develop a holitic view of what the
  community of practice is about, and what there is
  to learn within that community. Opportunities
  for learning are structured by the requirements
  of work, rather than teacher-student relations.
• Orey, M.A. and Nelson, W.A. (1997), The impact
  of situated cognition Instructional design
  paradiagms in transistion. In C. Dills and A.J.
  Romiszowski (eds.) Instructional Design
  Paradigms. Educational Technology Publications,
  Englewood Cliffs, NJ. p. 284

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Authentic and multiple practice

• Captures the variability of situations
• Promotes seeing the problem from different points
  of view
• Provides for sustained exploration of various
  parts of a problem

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Implications for instructional design

• Learning environments are created as open systems
• permit exploration
• have multiple representations of application
• Create rather then design situations (scenarios)
• provide an orientation toward action
• actions unfold into other actions controlled by
  the learner rather than the system

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Summary

• Other viewpoints of learning and instruction are
  still valid
• Those approaches can be embedded in a learning
  environment of authentic practice as part of the
  learning resources
• Knowledge derived from situations presumed to be
  more robust than that which is decontextualized
  and represented in the abstract

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Exploring learning scenarios

• Using scenario-based CAL modules, identify
  characteristics of these learning environments.