Wolfson and Willinsky
which leads them, they argue, to a better understanding of the learning task (Rogoff, 1990;
Wertsch, 1990). This leads those investigating situated learning to pay special attention to the learning
that goes on within specific social situations, such as
apprenticeships, coaching, and collaboration
(Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989).
A good example of what occupies those given to
studying situated learning is "the trajectory of participation," as James Greeno names it, through
which learners are drawn from observers to participants within "communities of practice" that are constituted by those who have mastered the task in
question (1997, p. 7). The aim is to create an
approach to learning for students that is "more personally and socially meaningful and [allows] students to foresee their participation in activities that
matter beyond school" (1997, p. 11). Based on a
review of the literature on situated learning, we have
devised a grid identifying four qualities that repeatedly turn up in descriptions of it - as it seeks and fosters contexts for learning that are situated in authentic work settings that entail collaboration with peers
and mentors and offer opportunities for reflection on
practice contexts. In the grid we have developed, the
four contexts associated with situated learning are
further divided into qualities identified with each
context, as well as illustrated by using an amalgam
of experiences that are derived from the Information
Technology Management program (See Table 1).
What is intended to be helpful here is not simply the
coinciding of qualities between situated and servicelearning, but rather to help those who work with and
research service-learning programs to identify more
fully the contexts and nature of learning which can
be expected to take place in successful programs.
It should be noted that although situated learning
places its emphasis on the social contexts, learning
obviously entails both cognitive processes and cultural practices. Given the inevitability of these factors, one might then ask, what are the benefits of
attending to or trying to influence cognitive processes, on the one hand, or social structures on the other?
When it comes to the efficacy of learning specific
tasks (and this is where the cognitive psychologists
stand by their record), the focus should well be on
mental processes. But when it comes to other sorts
of situations, and of problem-solving in collaboration with others, then the social situation that
increases the amount of learning seems particularly
relevant. It is not, then, a matter of which advances
the cause of education, as some have suggested
(Anderson, Reder, & Simon, 1997, p. 20), but about
a different model of learning; in other words, underlying the cognitive and situated approaches is an orientation to the world that can be said to fall between
personal and public spheres, individual and collectivity, competition and cooperation. There is decidedly room for both, and this is an especially important point for situation and service-learning advocates, because the situation of learning has been
largely a missing factor in the structure of teaching,
even though there has been good opportunity to pay
it greater mind without losing sight of the cognitive
element.
Lave and Wenger, in their landmark work in establishing this approach, Situated Learning: Legitimate
Peripheral Participation, draw on an ethnographic
investigation of five traditional and non-traditional
apprenticeships in Mexico, Liberia, and the United
States (1991). Extending Vygotsky's basic socio-higtoric propositions into actual work settings, they
tease out how communities of practice tend to reproduce themselves and change, just as cultural novices
with guidance from the veterans slowly move from
the periphery to the center of society: Legitimate
peripheral participation refers both to the "development of knowledgeably skilled identities in practice
and to the reproduction and transformation of communities of practice" (p. 55). An example of this is
found in those aspects of a medical internship which
involve watching and listening (legitimate periheral
participation) experienced doctors before stepping in
and treating patients.
Lave and Wenger (1991) focused on the acquisition of skills and knowledge outside of traditional
schooling, as if searching, in the spirit of Rousseau's
Emile, for those natural and uncorrupted means of
learning which are lost to the institutional nature of
education. Rather than asking, as so many do, how
can we best get students to learn now that we have
them in school, they have sought "to develop a view
of learning that would stand on its own" apart from
the situation and structures of schooling (p. 40). They
conclude that because a large part of learning can be
shown to be dependent upon tacit knowledge and its
cultural context, the school is in danger of offering
too little experience within the contexts that will
guide learning over the course of a lifetime. Lave and
Wenger recognize that not all apprenticeships situate
their learning well, and they speaking critically of
certain communities: "To the extent that the community of practice routinely sequesters newcomers,
either very directly as in the examples of apprenticeships for the butchers or in the more subtle and pervasive ways as in schools, these newcomers are prevented from peripheral participation" (p. 104).
Meanwhile, Hay (1993) pushes Lave and Wenger
on this point, arguing that peripheral participation
only diminishes the learner's opportunities for taking charge of, or responsibility for, the activity that
needs to be learned. Further, situated learning em
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