Situated Learning and Assessment
UCD College of Life Sciences
Teaching and Learning Symposium 2010
18 Feb 2010
Dr. Anne Drummond
UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science
Situated Learning


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Learning in which the learning environment is
‘situated’ in a particular context
Apprenticeship (cognitive)
Adult learning
Learning should be
Knowledge and skills
are learned in
contexts that reflect
how knowledge is
obtained and applied
in everyday situations
Creating meaning
from the activities of
daily living
always be regarded
as situated in a local
and social context,
contrary to traditional
theory of education
where knowledge is
considered free from
any contextual
influence
Situated Learning Theory

Emerged in late 1980s-1990s

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Builds on other theories

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Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989)
Lave and Wenger (1991)
Bandura’s social learning theory (modelling)
Vygotsky’s constructivism (scaffolding and fading)
Dewey, Knowles, Kolb
Has characteristics of



Principles of adult education (andragogy)
Problem-based learning
Experiential learning
Situated Learning apparently…


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Emphasises higher order thinking rather than the
acquisition of facts
Encourages reflection on learning
Focuses on application rather than retention
Places learners ‘in the experience’
Enhances employability of graduates
Learning occurs through dialogue with others in
a community of practice
Terminology


Communities of practice
Legitimate peripheral participation


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Legitimate: member of the community of
practice
Peripheral: learners start at the edge and can
move inwards
Participation: learning through doing
Situated learning applications

Schools


Social settings

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Community committees, sports,
leisure
Vocational and educational settings

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Mathematics, language, science
Apprenticeship, mentoring, coaching
Master-apprentice relationships
Work and professional settings


New position
Professional bodies
Core characteristic: active
participation of students in
a real-world or near-real
world context for the
purpose of learning
JPF, Practitioner and Student
Just Plain Folk
(JPF)
Students
Practitioners
Reasoning with
Causal stories
Laws
Causal models
Acting on
Situations
Symbols
Conceptual
situations
Resolving
Emergent
problems and
dilemmas
Well-defined
problems
Ill-defined
problems
Producing
Negotiable
meaning and
socially
constructed
understanding
Fixed meaning
and
immutable
concepts
Negotiable
meaning and
socially
constructed
understanding
(Brown, Collins and Duguid, 1989, p. 35)
Situated learning in the literature:
Experience of different disciplines

Educational (higher education) literature on situated learning
tends to

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
Samples
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Be descriptive or discursive
Focus on professional education domains
Management education (instructional design project for corporate clients)
Medicine (PGME / CPD situated in the workplace)
Nursing (situated in practice placements)
Engineering (situating a communications course within the curriculum)
OSH (situating SH&E training within the workplace)
More recently:

instructional design; computers providing an alternative to the
real-life setting; SL as a basis for web-based e-learning
Instructional design in SL:
9 critical characteristics
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
“Provide authentic context that reflects the way the
knowledge will be used in real-life;
Provide authentic activities;
Provide access to expert performances and the modelling of
processes;
Provide multiple roles and perspectives;
Support collaborative construction of knowledge;
Provide coaching and scaffolding at critical times;
Promote reflection to enable abstractions to be formed;
Promote articulation to enable tacit knowledge to be made
explicit;
Provide for integrated assessment of learning within the
tasks.”
(Herrington and Oliver, 2000)
Our experience of
Situated Learning in OSH
Challenges
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Adult professional CPE programmes
Actual work situation V placement or internship
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No work-based instruction
No work-based supervision or mentoring
Recognising experiential learning (+ need to capture)
Modularisation provided opportunity to review Cert, HDip
and BSc programmes
Decided to gain/assess evidence of ‘experiential’ learning
through assessment
Realised that situated learning was taking place
Examples of work-based
assessments in OSH
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Level 1: Report for manager (versus an essay)
OR Article for Chamber of Commerce newsletter
Level 1: Basic risk assessment of own workplace
Level 3: Risk assessments / management reports in a variety of domains
and contexts provide a scaffold and ultimately lead students, with reducing
support, to their:
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Level 3: Safety Statement project
Level 2: Professional portfolios
Level 3: Ergonomic assessment
Level 3: SWOT analyses
Level 3: Proposing a model for practice
Student feedback on workbased assessment Level 1
N=
62
169
101
Very Helpful
to my
Learning
%
19.4
32.9
51
Helpful
to my learning
%
62.9
61.1
43
Neither
helpful nor
Unhelpful
%
16.1
5.4
4
Unhelpful
to my learning
%
1.6
0
2
Very Unhelpful
to my learning
%
0
0.6
0
In terms of helpfulness to learning, please indicate the extent to which you found the
following components helpful or unhelpful: Preparing assignments
Module
and
Year
SHWW 10010
2009-10
SHWW 10020
2008-9
CertSHW
programme
2007-8
Student feedback on workbased assessment Level 3
N =
Strongly agree
%
Agree
%
Neither
agree nor Disagree
%
Disagree
%
Strongly
Disagree
%
Module and Year
10
25
75
0
0
0
SHWW 30070
2009-10
18
44
50
5.6
0
0
SHWW 30170
2008-9
15
40
33.3
0
6.7
20
SHWW 30180
2008-9
6
66.7
33
0
0
0
SHWW 30050
2008-9
20
52.6
31.6
10.5
5.3
0
SHWW 30060
2008-9
13
53.8
38.5
0
7.7
0
SHWW 30070
2007-8
18
27.8
44.4
11.1
11.1
5.6
SHWW 30160
2007-8
‘The continuous assessment helped me to apply learning in the context of the workplace’
Feedback on work-based assessment
BSc Graduate Evaluation (2002-2009)
N =
Very helpful
to my
learning
%
Helpful
to my learning
%
Neither
helpful nor
unhelpful
%
Unhelpful
to my learning
%
Very unhelpful
to my learning
%
51
35
53
10
2
0
51
55
39
6
0
0
60% response
Work-based
assignments
associated with
modules
Work-based
research project
Helpfulness to Learning: work-based assignments associated with modules
Helpfulness to Learning: work-based research project
61% of employers encouraged graduates to apply learning at work,
while doing BSc;
36% of employers were neutral, but did not discourage.
Student feedback
on work-based assessment
What was good about this module?
The use of real
life experiences
(workplaces)
was a plus
Assignments putting
learning into
work setting
Practical
Assignments
Continuous
assessment is
strongest
teaching feature
of module
I found the
assignments very
helpful, I learnt a
lot
PROs …
of the OSH experience

Theoretical
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Promotes deep learning
Social and professional
acceptance
Perceived value to
learners

In practice
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Increased student
engagement
Reduction in
‘regurgitated’ content
Positive student
evaluations
Designs out plagiarism
…and CONs
of the OSH experience

Theoretical

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[Such] socialisation
may not embody best
practice
Hard to implement in
the classroom
May not always be a
‘master’ involved
Debate over
transferability
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In practice

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More work for graders
(but probably more
interesting)
Difficult to attribute, i.e. to
separate impact of
situated learning from
effects of modularisation
or introduction of
continuous assessment
Opportunities

Situated Learning ….
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IS NOT … an educational form, pedagogical strategy or
teaching technique
IS …a way of understanding learning
Should not be ignored by educationalists
Provides an opportunity to pay attention to different
learning climates
In some domains it is important to recognise the social
and professional acceptance in communities of practice
as part of the learning experience
Important to look at LEARNING (not teaching) as the
contextualised or situated experience
References
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Anderson, J.R., Reder, L.M. and Simon, H.A. (1996). Situated Learning and Education. Educational
Researcher. 25 (4) pp. 5 – 11.
Boud, D. and Falchikov, N. (2006). Aligning assessment with long-term learning. Assessment and
Evaluation in Higher Education. 31 (4) pp. 399-413.
Brown, J.S., Collins, A. and Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning.
Educational Researcher. 18 (1) pp. 32 – 42.
Choi. J. and Hannafin, M. (1995). Situated cognition and learning environments: roles, structures,
and implications for design. Journal of Educational Technology Research and Development. 43 (2)
pp. 53 – 69.
Herrington, J. and Herrington, A. (1998). Authentic assessment and multimedia: how university
students respond to a model of authentic assessment. Higher Education Research and
Development. 17 (3) pp. 305 – 322.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning; legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge
University Press: Cambridge.
Merriam, S.B. and Caffarella, R.S. (1999). (2nd Ed). Learning in Adulthood: a comprehensive guide.
Jossey-Bass Publishers: San Francisco.
Romer, T.A. (2002). Situated learning and assessment. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher
Education. 27 (3) pp 233 – 241.
Stein, D. (1998). Situated learning in adult education. ERIC Digest no. 195. http://www.eric.ed.gov/
References
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Computer Science: Ben-Ari, M. (2004). Situated learning in computer science
education. Computer Science Education. 14 (2) pp 85 – 100.
Engineering: Artemeva, N., Logie, S. and St-Martin, J. (1999). From Page to Stage:
How theories of genre and situated learning help introduce engineering students to
discipline-specific communication. Technical Communication Quarterly. 8 (3) pp. 301 –
316.
Medicine: Swanick, T. (2005). Informal learning in postgraduate medical education:
from cognitivism to ‘culturism’. Medical Education. 39 (8) pp. 859 - 865.
Nursing: Cope, P., Cuthbertson, P. and Stoddart, B. (2000). Situated learning in the
practice placement. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 31 (4) pp. 850 – 856.
OSH: Machles, D. (2003). Situated learning; new approach to SH&E training focuses
on learning. Professional Safety. Sep 2003. pp. 22 – 28.
Physiotherapy: Richardson, B. (1999). Professional Development: 2. Professional
knowledge and situated learning in the workplace. Physiotherapy. 85 (9) pp 467 – 474.
Teaching: Korthagen, F. (2010). Situated learning theory and the pedagogy of teacher
education: Towards an integrative view of teacher behavior and teacher learning.
Teaching and Teacher Education. 26 (1) pp. 98–106.
Designing web-based E-learning: Hung, D. and Chen, D.T. (2001). Situated
cognition, Vygotskian thought and learning from the communities of practice
perspective: Implications for the design of Web-based E-learning. Educational Media
International. 38 (1) pp 3 – 12.
Thank you for listening
anne.drummond@ucd.ie