Week 6 Blog
Authentic Learning and Cognitive Apprenticeship
I found myself nodding my head a lot through this week’s
readings. My wife had to leave the room because I kept saying, “Hey, listen to
this, this is great!”. It turns out that my wife isn’t into situated cognition
like I apparently am. What is wrong with people? 😊
There is very little that I didn’t like here. As this is
mostly a reflection piece, I don’t think it behooves me (or the reader) to list
every single thing that excited me, or that had me thinking about my current
way of doing things opposed to how I might be able to do them better. But does
warrant a few…
First, I want to reiterate that I am, at heart, a fairly
solid behaviorist. I appreciate that one can’t see what is in the mind of
another individual, and so the only way we can determine if something has been
learned is by seeing the behavior; couple that with the adage that “repetition
enhances recall” and you’ve boiled me down pretty well. I find myself evolving.
There are exciting things about situated cognition and the idea of
apprenticeship. There is so much overlap with behaviorism, but authentic
learning adds a dimension that I can’t help but admire for its likelihood to
promote the learning, which will show in the behavior.
One of the problems I have always had with traditional
schooling is that the culture of the school seemed to have more to do with the learning
successes of the students then the quality of the instruction. I like how John
Brown (Brown, Collins, & Duguis, 1989, p1) described the dilemma, “conventional
schooling too often ignores the influence of school culture on what is learned
in school”. He goes on to explain that book learning, for the majority, is far
inferior to knowledge retention then is hand-on application of the learning, or
learning in an “authentic” situation, hence “authentic learning”. This
enculturation idea led me to think about my son, who is on the autism spectrum.
With this kind of knowledge, I can see how learning for him has been so much
harder in some instances. With out the ability to accurately interpret social
cues, it makes it very difficult to become a part of the culture, therefore difficulty
in some aspects of learning. But right now he is in a charter high school that,
as it turns out, is very involved with situated learning, and he is flying
through subjects as he is seeing the knowledge situated in its authentic
context, and not just being taught out of a book. This is obviously going to
require much more thought, but I like the idea that there is now a new avenue
to explore.
This led me to the challenge presented to Brown and Duguid
(Brown & Duguid, 1993, p10) where they stated, “One of the most persistent educational
questions following the discussion of situated learning has been: How can these
situated theories be operationalized?”. That is where my next exploration will
take place for my son so my lessons at home can be as effective as his school
lessons seem to be.
-Kevin
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational researcher, 18(1), 32-42.
Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (1993). Stolen knowledge. Educational technology, 33(3), 10-15.
Kevin, I am so glad that you got so much out of this week's readings. I also really resonated with this week's readings on authentic learning and situated cognition. I appreciated your comparisons between behaviorism and authentic learning as I hadn't made that connection yet in my brain. It's wonderful to hear that your son is having such positive experiences with authentic learning. Those authentic connections with what is taught/learned and the real world are so important for all learners. I love that you are now looking for opportunities to bring what you're learning in this course home to your son to enhance his learning and make his education more meaningful for him!
ReplyDelete-Shanna Sanders
DeleteKevin, I agree, I found the material this week to be fascinating. I love the topic of authentic learning. In relation to your post, I found this quote interesting. “The separation between knowing and doing has traditionally been the hallmark of school and university learning (Resnick, 1897).” In some K-12 schools there are authentic learning opportunities through vocational programs. However, I do not remember many authentic learning opportunities outside of this. Just as we have learned that a variety of learning theories should be used in instruction, I believe a variety of assessments should be used in instruction. Higher education is moving towards more authentic learning opportunities, but I wonder if K-12 is also incorporating this type of learning into instruction?
ReplyDeleteKevin, these are some interests points you bring up. What do you mean by culture of the school? Is it the economic resources available to teach, the number of higher level courses (AP and honors), and the various number of courses and training opportunities offered. If so, I can see how authentic learning itself is not enough if the school system cannot support (afford) it. I went to a small high school with no AP or honors courses. The school district was not big enough to have additional courses. It has now adopted the honors and AP format even though it has fewer students than when I went to it. So I would say learning model was affected by the culture of the school (state and local district agencies). I think authentic learning is the way to train and assess. Herrington & Oliver (2000) highlighted nine situated learning design elements that I are important. The key elements state that learning should provide authentic context and activities. The learning should also have authentic assessments and be from multiple roles and perspectives. (Herrington & Oliver, 2000) I think the last point particularly is important to capture the variety of authentic learning environments that a group of students may have.
ReplyDeleteReference
Herrington, J. & Oliver, R. (2000). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. ETR&D, 48(3), pp. 25-26.