Post #5: Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning:
In developing the 4th Design Principle (Knowledge) in class, the readings discuss how it's not just "What You Know", but also "Where" and "How" you learned it. Specifically promoting activities that are situated in the culture that the learning activity and tools can be applied in. This is demonstrated by the example of learning new words in the context of daily conversations versus by looking words up in a dictionary. Enculturation involved the idea that tools "can only be fully
understood through use, and using them entails both changing the user's view of
the world and adopting the belief system of the culture". Cognitive
apprenticeship supports learning in a domain by enabling students to acquire,
develop, and use cognitive tools in authentic domain activity.
I think it means that someone can own a tool and know its name, but they may not know the proper use of the tool as defined by the culture that they are working/living in. Learning must include authentic activities that relate to that cultural purpose, and give the learner opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge in the real world.
In my practice the physics lab activities that we do in each lesson all have an origin in authentic application. Projectile motion is the current lesson I am teaching and it can be related to ballistics analysis in military and forensic science professions. Whenever possible, I use computer simulations to replicate authentic activities to make this apparent to the students. For my labs, I always try to bring in authentic activities to the labs so that connections can be made to real-world activities and the students can pursue that further as their understanding and interests are developed.
I like your summation of what we learned in class this week. I think you are spot on that students can own a specific tool, but not be able to know the proper use of it. I find that teachers tend to forget the "WHY" aspect when they are teaching something to their students. Students need to know why they are learning something, and how it relates to their lives. In my history class right now we are studying archaeology and artifacts. We are connecting it to our lessons on the Native Americans of Virginia. I spent the first two days focusing on the skills necessary to be an archaeologist so the students could connect it to their studies in school. I then spent another day strictly focusing on how an archaeologist's role in the community is to connect the past to the present so we may have a better understanding of who we are as a community. By the end of the fourth day, when we had an actual archaeologist visit, the students had a deep understanding of the concept and were very interested in what our guest speaker had to say. I even had a few students tell her that they want to be an archaeologist someday. Now that was cool.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt the archaeologist added authenticity to the Native American lesson. The theme I am commenting in the other blogs is okay, they learned it, how do they retain it? I'm pretty sure rote repetition is going to come up in that discussion at some time. I am teaching breaking down of resultants into their x & y axis components, which involves the very basics of right triangle trigonometry and Pythagorean Theorem, which I know they learned and probably even took an SOL on, but do they remember any of it for my class? No, 95% can't do it. So I have to plan to teach it again as part of my curriculum. What's the point of having a great lesson in Situated Cognition, if the students are just going to forget it a couple of months later?
ReplyDeleteI think I would have enjoyed physics a lot more if I had taken a class like that. What simulation software do you use? If you have a tech ed department at your school and they have Autodesk Inventor, you should contact the teacher and see if you can test your equations on their simulation software. Things come out pretty accurate as long as you set up the simulation to be as real world as possible.
ReplyDeleteI use some java applets from University of Colorado, called PheTs. You can google that and they will come up. I like them because kids who are absent can do them on their own. There should be some you could use.
ReplyDelete