Week 3 - Situated Cognition

Yours truly paddling the Ammer River in Southern Bavaria

I can see why Brown, Collins and Duguid's Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning is a seminal text for anyone studying the ways people learn. This paper, from 1989 makes a lot of sense to me. I imagine I'll hold onto this one so that I can refer to it in the future.

The authors explain that learning is situated, or contextually dependent and that students learn best when the skills and knowledge they're presented with are learned within the context of that learning culture. The acquisition of knowledge is compared to learning the use of tools. Practitioners of various crafts make use of tools specific to their trades. Students who want to learn to use these tools should do so by using them correctly and within their appropriate contexts. The authors state that most learning that happens in schools is set in and appropriate for the culture of school. But real life isn't like school. In order for students to retain what they've learned, they need to experience something that's as close to an authntic experience as possible. If they're learning to write poetry, they should learn the culture and language of poets. If they're learning a foreign language, they should immerse themselves in that foreign culture. If they're learning to fix cars, they should take on the language of auto mechanics. This is not to say that all students will become poets or mechanics; it just means that learning should not happen in a meaningless vacuum. Activity, concept and culture are all linked and affect the way students learn.

While I read this I thought instantly of a skillset that is impossible to learn without immersion. It has to be learned in situ. That is the set of skills of the whitewater kayaker. One can learn the language of this activity by reading. A novice can look to books to find out what words like eddy, boof, hole, ferry, strainer, brace, tongue, hydraulic, and swim mean to the boater community, but the only way to truly understand this sport is to become a part of the culture, as I did while I was living overseas. When I joined the Schweinfurter Kanu-verein, not only did I join a group of people with a similar interest in recreation, but I had joined a German club in my host community. I had to take words and terms I'd learned boating in the States and think about them within a foreign language and setting. When I got out onto the water, this learning was authentic in that it kept me in my boat and above water.

The main reason that learning to become a whitewater boater is situated, or context specific, is that many of the concepts one must learn need to be practiced in moving water. To be as safe as possible, a boater needs to know how to speed through a rapid, then know where to look for a safe patch of still water to "eddy out". Moving safely and maintaining composure in rapids means knowing what to look for - low hanging trees, dangerous undercut rocks, boat-trapping holes and other hazards, and there is no way to know how to deal with them unless you've been flipped out of your boat a few times. There are telltale signs to alert the kayaker to all sorts of hazards on the water, and one has to know how to look for these signs. Since the look of a rushing river varies from location to location, and even at different times of day on a single river, this is something one cannot study by reading about it in books. It has to be experienced. It takes an immersion experience. All of this came to mind when I read Situated Cognition. I know that there are some things that just can't be learned in a classroom.