Situated learning,Cognition and Communities in practice

1. Situatedlearning,Cognition and Communities in practice Jean Lave Cognition in practice Mind. Mathematics and culture in everydaylife Jean Lave &EtienneWenger Situatedlearning and communities of practice

2. Jean Lave • Jean Lave is an anthropologist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. • She has studiededucation and schooling in pre-industrialsocieties and comparedwithcorresponding American conditions. She has become a strongadvocate of ”practice of learning” • Laves challenges the practice of school and classroomlearning.

3. Jean Lave • In her book «Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics and culture in everydaylife» from 1988. shecriticizes the decontextualisedunderstanding of learningwithin behaviorist and cognitivepsychology, wherelearning has beenunderstood as consisting of isolatedprocesseswhethertheybemechanicalbehavioralresponseorinnercognitiveprocesses. • TogetherwithEtienneWengershe has formulated atheory of situatedlearning. In the influential book Situatedlearning, legitimate, peripheral participation(1991/2003).

4. Lave • From cognitiveprocesses and conceptualstructures to social engagements • Education must beanalyzed in relation with the world for which it preparespeople.

5. Antrophological research in Liberia • Lave investtigated the learning and use of mathamongVai and Goaapprenticetaylors in Liberia (1973 . 78) • The research showedthatroutinecalculations in the tailor shops werequitedifferent from thoseevoked in experimentswhetheror not the tailors had attendedschool.

6. Cognition in practice • The Liberia research challenged the importance of learning transfer as a source of knowledge and skillacross situations . • Theseresultslead Lave to conductcomparativestudy of everydaymathematics in the USA. ” The adultMath Project” • Designed to investigatearithemetic in situ, following the same individualsacrossvariedsettings in the course of theirdaily lives.

7. Social anthropology of cognitionor ”outdoorpsychology”(Geertz 1983) • Exit from a theoreticalperspectivethatdepends upon the claustrophobicview of cognitionfrom inside the laboratory and school. • Cognition as acomplex social phenomenon • Cognition in everydaypractice isdistributedstretching over (not divided) mind, body, activity and culturallyorganizedsettings • The cognition – and-culturepsychcologistsarecritical of claimsthatlaboratoryexperimentation is a sufficient basis for generalizing.

8. Twoparadigms Traditionalpsychology Social anthropology of cognition Conflict, power and disequilibrium Participant ion+interview phenomenology Historical & social contextual Valueembedded (socialconstructistreflection) • Functional social equilibrium • Laboratoryexperimentation • Positivist inspiration • Rational • general • Value-free • Factualknowledge

9. Math ”activity” as distributed form of cognition • Empirical support for thisview of cognition has emerged from research exploring the practice of mathematics in a variety of commonsetting. • Math”activity”(distributed form of cognition) takes form differently in different situations.

10. Original research questions of the project • Howdoesarithmeticunfold in actions in everydaysettings ? • Does it matter whether it is a major orminoraspect of ongoingactivity ? • Arethere differences in arithmetic procedures betweensituations in school(taking a math test) and situations far removedfrom school(kitchen, supermarket) ?

11. Methods • A number of closelyrelated studies: • ”bestbuy” arithmeticcalculations in the course of grocery shopping in the supermarket • A simulation experimentonthese same calculations • An extensive set of arithmetic tests and observations across time, settings and activities of dietingcooks in the kitchen and of peoplemanaging the flow of money in theirhouseholds.

12. The empirical and theoreticalcharacterization of situationallyspecificcognitiveactivity ? • Is the absence of school-problemfunctions in everydaymathactivity to beintepreted as ”absence of schoolmathematics”? • The construction of someothermathematics ? • Theinadequateorincompleteuse of schoolaritmetic ? • Howdoesschoolingshapearitmeticactivity in everyday situations ? • What model mightbestcapture the unfoldingcharacter of problem-solvingin situ?

13. Culturalconstruction and distribution • Participants and activities far removed from school and laboratory and yetfocusedonarithmetic-schoolsubject and exemplar of beliefabout the rational mind. • Both sites and content of research reflectedassumptionsabout the culturalconstructionand distribution of mathematicalknowledge.

14. Research dilemmas and epistemologicalquestions • Ourunderstanding of learning is entangledwith institutions and dilemmas which for purposes of cognitive research areusuallytreated as ifthey had nodirectbearingoneachother. • Widelysharedbeliefthat” scientificthought is a proper yardstickwithwhich to measure diagnose and prescriberemedies for the everydaythoughtobserved in experiments and schooling.”Thisbelief has long historicalrootsthat have influencedcognitivetheory, the institutional form of schooling and folk theoriesalike.

15. Arithmetic in and out of school • The research projectdismisses the followingconventionalassumptions: • Most kids fail to learn in school, so the world must be made up of un-numeratepeoplewhocannotmultiplyordivide” • ”Schoolaritmeticalgorithmsareusedroutinely in the everyday lives of schoolalumni( there is noother kind of math to use)

16. A differentproblematic of cognition ? • One way to rethink models of mind is to reexaminecognitiveprocesses , infusedwith a specifictheoreticalmeaning by contemporarycognitivetheory – as has mathematics. • The usualtheoreticalmetaphor is a computationalone in which the mind is supposed to reflect, represent and operateon • Ratherthaninteractwith the world.

17. Critique offunctionalism and the duality of traditionalviews of cognition. • Functionalismassumes • that society is characterized by a set of macrostructures to bepassivelyinternalizedby individualsborninto it. • thatConsensus is the foundations of sharedorder. • thatCultural transmission is central to achievingconsensusand is the crucial relation between society and individual.

18. Functionalism and education • Functionalismarose in the earlynineteenthcentury as an argument of the new industrialbourgeoisieagainstaristocraticprivilege. • Equalopportunity to advancein life: Thosewhoweresuperiorphysically, mentally and morallywouldnaturally rise to the top. Thosewholackedthesequalitieswouldstaywheretheybelonged. • Functionaltheorypermeatesrationales,explanations and organization of schoolingand is reflected in the concept of meritocracy

19. An implicit functionalisttheory of learning(critique by lave) • Childrencanbetaught general cognitiveskills(e.g. reading, writing and aritmetic) ifthese ”skills” aredisembedded from the routinecontexts of theiruse. • Extraction of knowledge from the particulars of experience, of activity from itscontext, is the conditions for makingknowledgeavailable for general applicationin all situations. • Classroom tests put the principle to work

20. Duality and cognition • Aduality of the person(rational vsemotional) is inherent in the view of functionalismand it is implicit in the logic of traditionalcognitive studies. • Dualityof the person translatesintodivision betweenintellectuallabour and the rest of the population • Dualitybetween rational scientificthought and everydaythought • Traditionalcognitive studies are not equipped to elaborate a theory of activereflexive social actors, located in time and space.

21. Transfer as the essence of functionalisttheory of learning • Cognitivepsychologyaccounts for stability and continuity of cognitiveactivityacrosssettingsthrough the psychologicalmechanism of learning transfer. • Knowledgeacquired in ”context-free”circumstances is supposed to beavailable for general application in all contexts. • The central role of transfer reflects the functionalistassumption of literalcultural transmission and conceptualization of relations betweenschool and everydaypractice.

22. Learning transfer ? • The concept of learning transfer reflects a widelysharedassumptionabout the cognitive basis of continuity of activityacrosssettings. • Conventionaltheoryassumesthataritmethic is learned in school in the normative fashion it is taught • CT assumesthataritmethic is thencarriedaway from school to beapplied at will in any situation thatcalls for application

23. Culture • The concept of culturaluniformityreflectsfunctionalistassumptionsabout society as a consensualorderand cultural transmission as a process of homogeneousculturalreproductionacross generations. It has served as a mandate to treatculture in cognitive studies as it were a constant, as ifnothingessentialaboutthinkingwouldbedisturbedifitseffectswerecontrolledexperimentally

24. Critique of Culture as a container • Culturaluniformitylegislatesaway major questionsabout social diversity, inequality, conflict, complementarity, cooperation and differences of power and knowledge and the means by whichtheyaresociallyprodued, reproduced and transformed in laboratory, school and everydaysettings.

25. Situatedlearning • Human mindsdevelop in social situations. • Theyuse thetools and representational mediathatcultureprovides to support, extend and reorganize mental functioning. • Cognitivetheories and schoolpractice have not beensufficientlyresponsive to questionsaboouttheserelationships.

26. LegitimatePeripheral Participation( Lave & Wenger 1991) • Legitimate: The presence of members must beacknowledged (apprenticeship) • Peripheral: apprentices (newcomers) move from the periphery to center. • Participation: Learning is a processthattakesplace in a participation framework. • Learning ismediated by the differences of perspectivesamong the coparticipants. • Learning isdistributedamong the coparticipants

27. LPP theory . Empirical basis • Apprenticeship • Vai and GolaTailors in Liberia • Butchers ( meatcutters) in teh U.S. • Yucatecmidwives • AA- non-drinkingalchoholics (U.S) etc

28. Challenging the teacher ad the ressources of the community(Gates doctrine) • ” masteryresidesnot in the master but in the organization of the community of practice of which the master is part”. • The roles of masters varyacross time and place • A decentredview of the master as pedagoguemoves the focus of analysisaway from teaching and into theintricatestructuring of a community´slearningresources” ( LPP, p. 94)

29. Principles of learning in LLP • Stronggoals for learningbecauselearnersdevelop a view of what the whole entreprise is about. • Apprenticeslearnmostly in relationwithotherapprentices • Engaging in practiceratherthanbeingitsobjectmaybe a condition for the effectiveness of learning. Apprenticesgraduallyassemble a general idea of whatconstituespractice.

30. Communities of Practice • Situatedlearning haspracticeat itsheart. • It removeslearning from individualism. • Insteadlearning is anchored in access to participation incommunities of practice. • Learningis increasedaccess of learners to partipatingroles in expert performances ( cf research groups)

31. Discourse and practice • Verbal instruction has beenassumed to have special and especiallyeffectiveproperties. • While • Learning by observation and imitation is supposed to produce the opposite, a literal and narroweffect. • LLP arguesthatlanguagemay have more to do withlegitimacy of participation and accessthanknowledge transmission. • Learning to become a legitimate participant involveslearninghow to talk (and besilent)

32. Structureof LLP, (Lave & Wenger) • Frameworks of practicearestructured and systematic . • It is preciselythatwhichprovides the conditionsfor legitimateperipheral participation. • But structuresonlyvaguelydeterminethought and the structuresmaybereconfiguredin the localcontext of action.

33. Examples of criticalquestions to beraised in relation to situatedlearning and communities og pratice • An understanding of learning as legitimateperipheral participation in communities of practicetends to overlook conservatism, protectionism and the tendency to recycleknowledge. ???? • Under whatcircumstancesmightsituatedlearninglead to renewal of practice , i.e. to creativity and innovation ? • From anthropological observation to theory of learning and schooling ?? • Variouscontexts have variousimplications . Need for criticaldesciptions. • The notion of ”communities of practice” has idealistic overtones and mightbe (and have been) used and abused by differentintersts.”