Tell me and I will forget,
Show me and I may remember,
Involve me and I will understand.
Situated Learning
Legitimate peripheral participation
Lave & Wagner, 1991
Goal of this book

Rescue the idea of apprenticeship

Remove the stereotypes associated with
apprenticeship.
Ch. 1
A little history…

How do we get from apprenticeship to
legitimate peripheral participation?

Apprenticeship implies situated learning


General knowledge and when/where to use it.
Situated learning leads to legitimate
peripheral participation

Learning is not merely situated in practice, it is
integral to the generative social practice.
Don’t attack the schools!




Attack = bad
“We do not talk here about schools in any substantial
way, nor explore what our work has to say about
schooling.” [39]
Poke and jab = ok
“…we are persuaded that rethinking schooling from
the perspective afforded by legitimate peripheral
participation will be a fruitful exercise.”[41]
Ch. 2
Practice, Person, Social World

Most theories of learning only focus on the
person


Analysis and instruction are driven by “knowledge
domains” and constrained by assimilation and
acquisition mechanisms.
Legitimate peripheral participation


“Learning is not merely a condition for
membership, but is an evolving form of
membership.”[53]
Relations between persons, place, and
participation in communities of practice.
Ch. 3
Examples of apprenticeship





Midwives
Tailors
Quartermasters
Butchers
Nondrinking Alcoholics
Examples of apprenticeship
(cont’d)

Why?

Provide historically and culturally specific examples
to show legitimate peripheral participation





History
Technology
Developing work activity
Careers
Relations between newcomers and old-timers and
newcomers/newcomers and old-timers/old-timers
Apprenticeship misconceptions

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. A
master/apprentice blacksmith in feudal
Europe.



Narrow definition due to functionalist and Marxist
views of educational “progress”
Treated like a historical object
Today, learning in the form of apprenticeship
occurs when high levels of knowledge and
skill are in demand.
Yucatec Midwives


Informal, family
Teaching is not central to the midwives
or to learning


Apprenticeship happens as a way of, and in
the course of, daily life.
Telling stories, etc.
Vai and Gola Tailors (W. Africa)


More formal learning than midwives
Learn skills in a backward order



1. Learn to sew, press clothes
2. Learn to cut
3. Learn to measure
Naval Quartermasters

Very formal, go to school


School teaches terminology and concepts
No real experience


Problem: Can pick up bad habits
On the job training


Learn general tasks first
Learn specific tasks last
Meat Cutters


Formal, school and on the job training
In school

Learn skills easy to teach in classroom, but not
used in supermarket




Wholesale cuts
Sharpening knives
Apprentices placed in most needed position,
and may never leave.
Position at work doesn’t allow apprentices to
watch others and learn, or be watched.
Nondrinking Alcoholics

Several AA meetings a week with near-peers
and adepts.




Old-timers tell stories
Smaller discussion meetings
Newcomers gradually become old-timers
* Personal stories are told to provide a model
of alcoholism. Newcomers aren’t told how to
tell their stories, but most learn how.


Exposed to models
Interaction
Ch. 4
In Communities of Practice

Goals:

“Discuss the structuring of resources that
shape the process and content of learning
possibilities and apprentices’ changing
perspectives on what is known and
done.”[91]


How do they learn this stuff?
How is identity and motivation generated
as newcomers become old-timers?
In Communities of Practice:
Structuring Resources for Learning in Practice

Master-apprentice relation isn’t what defines
a newcomer in all cases


Midwives, tailors, nondrinking alcoholics
“In all cases, there is little observable
teaching, the more basic phenomenon is
learning.”[91]


Community creates the curriculum
“Learners, as peripheral participants, can develop
a view of what the whole enterprise is about, and
what is to be learned.”[93]
In Communities of Practice:
Structuring Resources for Learning in Practice (cont’d)


Apprentices learn mostly in relation with
other apprentices
Must decenter common notions of
mastery

“Mastery resides not in the master but in
the organization of the community of
practice of which master is part.”[94]

This moves focus from teaching to learning.
In Communities of Practice:
The Place of Knowledge: Participation, Learning
Curricula, Communities of Practice.


Apprentices gradually assemble a general idea of
what constitutes the practice of the community
 Who is involved
 What they do
 What everyday life is like
 How masters talk, walk, work
 What other learners are doing
Community offers “exemplars” (grounds and
motivation for learning)
 Masters
 Finished products
 More advanced apprentices
In Communities of Practice:
The Place of Knowledge: Participation, Learning
Curricula, Communities of Practice. (cont’d)

Two types of schooling

Learning curriculum



Situated opportunities for the improvisational
development of new practice
A field of learning resources in everyday practice viewed
from the perspective of learners.
Teaching curriculum


Constructed for the instruction of newcomers
Supplies (and thereby limits) structuring resources for
learning.
In Communities of Practice:
The Place of Knowledge: Participation, Learning
Curricula, Communities of Practice. (cont’d)

Learning curriculum is characteristic of a
community. It assumes members



Have different interests
Make diverse contributions to activity
Hold varied viewpoints
In Communities of Practice:
The Problem of Access: Transparency and
Sequestration

To become a full member of a community of
practice requires access to a wide range of


Ongoing activity
Old-timers



Could virtual agents be considered old-timers?
Other members of the community
Info, resources, and opportunities for participation

Transparency: when a learner understands the inner
workings of a “black box” resource and understands its’
significance for use.
In Communities of Practice:
The Problem of Access: Transparency and
Sequestration (cont’d)

Communities of practice sequester
newcomers

Reproductive cycle


birth of newcomer, not baby
Schoolchildren are legitimately
peripheral, but kept from participation
in the social world
In Communities of Practice:
Discourse and Practice

Learning to talk the trade


Difference between talking about a practice from
outside and talking within it.
Stories are important

Learning is supported by conversations and stories
about problematic and difficult cases


Technician “war story”
Telling the story is a tool of diagnosis and
reinterpretation
In Communities of Practice:
Motivation and Identity: Effects of Participation

Newcomer’s initial tasks are






Short and simple
Low cost of errors
Little responsibility
Not a lot of time involved
Distinction between play and work is fuzzy
Intrinsic rewards shouldn’t be used. The value of
contribution to the community is the reward
In Communities of Practice:
Motivation and Identity: Effects of Participation
(cont’d)

Schools don’t do this (initial tasks)

Consequences


“Identity of learners becomes an explicit object of
change, instead of view of self as object.”[112]
Exchange value replaces use value




Test taking takes over (parasitic practice)
No cultural identity of the activity
No field of mature practice for what is being learned
Another note. Current analyses of schools

Assumes teacher and pupil share the goal of the
main activity
Ch. 5
Conclusion

Legitimate peripheral participation


Moves in a centripetal direction
Motivated by




Location in a field of mature practice
Growing use value of participation
Newcomers’ desires to become full practitioners
Remember the penguins!
Reference

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1999). Situated Learning.
Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge
University Press.