Situated Cognition Part 1: Communities of Practice Flashcards
1
Q
Situated Cognition: Context
A
One of the Contextual Theories (the “cognitions”):
- Situated Cognition: Knowledge is situated within authentic activity, context, and culture
- Distributed Cognition: Knowledge is distributed across objects, individuals, artifacts, and tools
- Embodied Cognition: All aspects of cognition are shaped by the body
2
Q
Situated Cognition in Action: Weight Watchers
A
Dieters are asked to prepare their lunch and fix a servicing of cottage cheese that is 3/4 of the 2/3 allowed
3
Q
Situated Cognition: Context (continued)
A
- Deeply rooted/grounded in Vygotskian constructivism
- Cognition originates from internalizing external interactions
- External activity occurs internally -> learning
- Interpersonal processes transform into internal processes
- Cognition is (at least in part) determined by cultural norms
- Assumptions:
- Learning cannot be considered separately from prior experiences
- All mental activity is grounded in external activity
- Cognition originates from internalizing external interactions
4
Q
Learning in Situated Cognition
A
- All learning is situated
- Takes place and needs to be understood within a context
- Context provides structure and meaning
- Learning is participation
- It happens through adoption of the behaviors and belief systems of social groups
- Learning is a tangible skill set
- Not just something that’s happening “inside the head” but actions and goal-directed activities within cultural contexts
5
Q
Learning in Situated Cognition: Examples
A
- Learning vocabulary in everyday interaction is much more effective than giving vocab words to memorize
- Second language learning: Difficult in a classroom or a textbook, but easier to immerse oneself in a group where the language is primarily spoken
- Learning how to drive: You learn a lot of driving etiquette from just being a passenger
- Etiquette for elevator behavior is learned from participating in the situation
- The teacher arranges for students to visit a local justice of the peace office, talk with the justice of peace, and observe a justice of the peace session
6
Q
Key Concepts in Situated Cognition
A
- Authentic Activities:
- Situations that mirror meaningful contexts are authentic activities
- They use real practices and strategies you would encounter
- Authentic activities develop the most relevant skills for learning
- But it’s difficult to apply abstract knowledge in context
7
Q
Situated Cognition in Action
A
- Assessing Brazilian street vendors’ math skills:
- Average accuracy at market stalls: 98% (Authentic Activity)
- Average accuracy on market stall word problems: 74%
- Average accuracy on arithmetic test: 37%
- Their mathematics and problem-solving skills directly depended on the context
8
Q
Key Concepts in Situated Cognition
A
- Communities of Practice: Communities of people can be characterized based on their shared domain, notion of community, and practice
- Legitimate Peripheral Participation: How newcomers become oldtimers by first participating in low-risk tasks then gradually take on more central tasks to the CoP
- Cognitive Apprenticeship: Learning through guided experience on cognitive and metacognitive skills and processes
- Affinity Spaces: A virtual or physical place where informal learning takes place based on a shared interest or common activity
9
Q
Communities of Practice
A
- “In a nutshell, Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” -Etienne Wenger
10
Q
Communities of Practice (CoP)
A
- A CoP is a group of individuals that share a concern or a passion for something they do and strive to improve as they interact over time
- Learning occurs during interactions between members with different levels of expertise
- Oldtimers
- Newcomers
- Within a given CoP, people will have different specializations and social relationships
- But they always share a focus and engage in activities together
11
Q
Communities of Practice: 3 Key Characteristics
A
- Shared domain of interest
- Focus on community relationships of learning
- Shared practice develops over time through social negotiation
12
Q
3 Characteristics Defined
A
- Domain: Shared Domain of interest
- Ex. radiologist, Star Trek fans, middle school history teachers, Badger football fans
- Not just a network of people or club of friends- need commitment
- Community: Relationships are key
- Interact with each other, engage in shared activities, help each other, share information with each other, and build relationships that enable them to learn from each other
- Practice: Members are practitioners, engaged in practice
- Shared repertoire of resources which can include stories, tools, experiences, ways of handling typical problems, shared language/jargon, etc.
13
Q
CoP’s are Dynamic
A
- Newcomers come in and learn from oldtimers
- As newcomers come in, they may change the practice
14
Q
Learning is Enculturation
A
- Enculturation: The ways in which “people, consciously or unconsciously, adopt the behavior and belief systems of new social groups”
- By participating in the practices of a community, we selectivity appropriate skills, knowledge, values, ways of thinking, and identities with that community
15
Q
Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP)
A
- Within a CoP, newcomers first engage in low-risk, but productive, activities (i.e., on the periphery)
- Over time, they build familiarity with the language, principles, and culture of a community
- Eventually, they can take on progressively more important/central tasks
- Newcomers become oldtimers
- This is learning from a Situated Cognition perspective
