H800 week 4 activity 2 situated cognition
http://www.jstor.org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/stable/1176008?cookieSet=1
The authors are mainly concerned with learning design in schools but I am aware that these ideas might transcend that particular situation. In particular, they are interested in how school students become enculturated into a community of practice in an authentic way. “School activity too often tends to be hybrid, implicitly framed by one culture, but explicitly attributed to another. ... What students do tends to be ersatz activity.” (page 34) “Authentic activity ... is important for learners, because it is the only way they gain access to the standpoint that enables practitioners to act meaningfully and purposefully.” (page 36) Brown et al. put forward the suggestion (page 32) that "activity and situations are integral to cognition and learning”. I like the comparison with learning language and vocabulary. They point out that vocabulary is best learned in context. Ambiguity, polysemy, nuance and metaphor, these are all words which Brown et al. use in terms of language acquisition and I rather like the sense that they can be applied to all learning (ibid: 32 -33). The authors also point out that no tool is any use unless we become accustomed to using it. Of course, as they write, many tools can be used ‘creatively’ and not necessarily in line with specified rules – or differently in different contexts. In terms of considering collaborative learning, collective problem solving and multiple roles (page 40), this article could have been written much more recently.
Is the concept of apprenticeship still valid in a modern economy? They introduce the term cognitive apprenticeship and it would seem to me that learning and education may well become the economy of the 21st century.
I'll try to find something to back that last point up - anyone got anything?
"Is the concept of apprenticeship still valid in a modern economy?"
ReplyDeleteI think more than ever. I found Jane Jacobs, The Dark Age Ahead, http://ilnk.me/1c46 a very useful argument to get a perspective on why.
In it, Jacobs attacks universities for having abandoned true education in favor of "credentialing, While she doesn't focus on high school education, I think the same argument holds true.
I tend to look at education from a Political Economy Point of view. In that framework the credentialing trend is what has backgrounded the notion of mentored apprenticeships as a natural and sustainable process of education.
From what I think I see, Arne Duncan and the Dept of Ed in the States, get it. Although much of what they are doing is hard to see through the fog of "standardized tests". I think a close attention to the disruptive waves now moving through American high school education is well worth watching.
Thanks MichaelI'l follow tha link up and I'll be interested in developments in the USA
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