Lave

 Jean Lave  Situated Learning

**PROFILE** Professor of Education and Geography at University of California - Berkeley.  Social anthropologist “much of her ethnographically-based research concentrates on the re-conceiving of learning, learners, and everyday life in terms of social practice” (USC Berkley, n.d.)

 Situated learning is based on collaborative social interaction. Lave believes that learning occurs when it is in context, for example a child learns how to skateboard by watching and being with other skateboarders, rather than learning this skill in an out of context classroom setting. The key to learning is social - the learner is part of a ‘community of practice’. In the beginning they are on the periphery of the community and gradually move towards the centre of the community by watching, and then gradually interacting and participating with the more experienced members.

//**Essential Question 1:**//  //**Is learning a solitary activity, undertaken by an individual, or is learning a social**//  //**activity, something done by a group within a context?**//

 “Learning is a social process whereby knowledge is co-constructed.”

 “Learners inevitably participate in communities of practitioners and… the mastery of knowledge and skill requires newcomers to move toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. "Legitimate peripheral participation" provides a way to speak about the relations between newcomers and old-timers, and about activities, identities, artifacts, and communities of knowledge and practice. A person’s intentions to learn are engaged and the meaning of learning is configured through the process of becoming a full participant in a sociocultural practice. This social process, includes, indeed it subsumes, the learning of knowledgeable skills.” (Lave and Wenger 1991: 29)

 New knowledge comes from participation because it is through //doing//  that knowledge is acquired. Knowledge is situated within the practices of the community of practice, rather than something which exists “out there” in books. It’s learning from others. (Atherton, 2010)

 Situated learning “is the bridge between a view according to which cognitive processes (and this learning) are primary and a view according to which social practice I the primary, generative phenomenon, and learning is one of its characteristics.” (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

 //**Essential Question 2:**// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> //**Is learning primarily focused on the transmission of facts and information or is it**// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> //**focused on the development of understanding of concepts and new knowledge?**//

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Learning should not be viewed as simply the transmission of abstract and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> decontextualized knowledge from one individual to another. (Lave and Wenger, 1991).

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Learning is not seen as the acquisition of knowledge by individuals but more as a process of <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//social// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">participation.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Knowledge is gained from all aspects of everyday life and experiences - it is not about the transmission of facts. Knowledge is gained from ‘situations’ and is transferred to like-situations. Learning comes about from being involved in a social situation (a community of practice). <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/constructivism/Lave.html)

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> //**Essential Question 3:**// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> //**Is our goal as educators to prepare an individual who can recall sets of information**// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> //**or develop groups of individuals who can apply the information to as yet unsolved**// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> //**problems?**//

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Practice! Individuals use knowledge acquired from others and learn to discern it in <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> order to apply it to unsolved problems.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//**Essential Question 4:**// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> //**Does development precede learning, or does learning precede development?**//

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Learning precedes development because learning is unintentional, a process Lave & Wegner call “legitimate peripheral participation”

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Works Cited: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//Situated Learning: Legitimate peripheral participation.// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> ATHERTON J S (2010) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//Learning and Teaching; Situated learning// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[On-line] UK: Available: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">__http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/situated.htm__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Accessed: 1 November 2010

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/constructivism/Lave.html__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.infed.org/biblio/learning-social.htm__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> USC Berkley. (n.d.). Lave, Jean. Retrieved November 13, 2010 from <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/jeanlave__]