Situated Cognition and learning Environments: Roles, Structures, and
Implications for design
By Jeong-Im & Michael Hannafin
Situated cognition provides:
-meaning learning
-transfer of knowledge to real life situations
Purpose of the article:
-to examine the theoretical aspects of situated cognition
-to derive implications for the design of situated learning environments
Formal education Vs Situated Cognition and learning environments:
Formal education: skills and education differ from real life situation
emphasis on decontextualized contexts and learning outcomes
Implications for the design of situated learning environments:
Four aspects are addressed: the role of the content
the role of the context
the role of facilitation
the role of assessment
Principles of each framework
Framework
Principles
Everyday cognition: people reason intuitively based upon
experiences within specific contexts; use a variety of methodes
to solve problems
The role of
context
Authenticity: coherent, meaningful and purposeful activities
that represent the ordinary practises
Transfer: situated learning environments are more likely to
transfer to real-life problem solving
Knowledge as tool: students acquire knowledge as well as a
sense of when and how to use it
The role of
content
Content diversity and transfer: concepts need to be represented
via various conent; necessity to apply knowledge in various
setting to discriminate similarities and differences among
settings
Cognitive apprenticeships: to provide the opportunities for the
learners to internalize learning and develop self-monitoring
and self-correcting skills.
Anchored instruction: to create authentic, problem-rich
environments that encourage exploration and diversity of
perspectives
The role of
facilitation
Facilitation methods: situated learning environments attempt
to help students to improve their cognitive abilities,
self monitoring and self-correcting skills; encourage active
learning and provide opportunities to
internalize information; facilitation is less directive, more
continuous, and highly interactive
Modelling
Scaffolding
Coaching, guiding, and advising
Collaborating
Fading
Using cognitive tools and resources
Modelling
Scaffolding
Coaching, guiding, and advising
Collaborating
Fading
Using cognitive tools and resources
The role of
assessment
Problems and issues: in order to be useful in promoting higher
thinking skills, testing needs
to shift from domain referenced evaluation to assessments;
emphasis need to be on the ability to diagnose manage
cognitive growth rather then achievement
Implications and conclusions
Situated cognition has several implications for learning system design as well as teaching
and learning process:
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emphasis high order thinking skills
provides complex ill-defined and authentic tasks
attempts to cultivate awareness (needed skills in the metacognitive monitoring of
process toward a solution and the reasoning experts experience in real world
problem solving)
induces inferential reasoning, monitoring and regulation of problem solving and
utilization of metacognition skills
focus on growth primarily in student cognition
has a primary goal: to allow students (and teachers) to experience the effects of
new knowledge on their perception and understanding of the environment
Implications of situated learning:
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it support learning (from the demand side rather than the supply side
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the designer moves from the organization of content and sequence to the creation
of environment that induce, then facilitate, understanding
requires different roles for teachers : from a knowledge transmitter to a coach or
facilitator of students' understanding
requires a fundamental change in test traditions: focus on the individual's cognitive
progress and transfer of knowledge (testing the cognitive progress)
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