Tell me and I will forget, Show me and I may remember, Involve me and I will understand.

Situated Learning
Legitimate peripheral participation

Lave & Wagner, 1991

Goal of this book

Rescue the idea of apprenticeship

Remove the stereotypes associated with apprenticeship.

Ch. 1 A little history

How do we get from apprenticeship to legitimate peripheral participation?

Apprenticeship implies situated learning

General knowledge and when/where to use it.

Situated learning leads to legitimate peripheral participation

Learning is not merely situated in practice, it is integral to the generative social practice.

Dont attack the schools!

Attack = bad
We do not talk here about schools in any substantial way, nor explore what our work has to say about schooling. [39]

Poke and jab = ok

we are persuaded that rethinking schooling from the perspective afforded by legitimate peripheral participation will be a fruitful exercise.[41]

Ch. 2 Practice, Person, Social World

Most theories of learning only focus on the person

Analysis and instruction are driven by knowledge domains and constrained by assimilation and acquisition mechanisms. Learning is not merely a condition for membership, but is an evolving form of membership.[53] Relations between persons, place, and participation in communities of practice.

Legitimate peripheral participation

Ch. 3 Examples of apprenticeship

Midwives Tailors Quartermasters Butchers Nondrinking Alcoholics

Examples of apprenticeship (contd)

Why?

Provide historically and culturally specific examples to show legitimate peripheral participation

History Technology Developing work activity Careers Relations between newcomers and old-timers and newcomers/newcomers and old-timers/old-timers

Apprenticeship misconceptions

Yeah, I know what youre thinking. A master/apprentice blacksmith in feudal Europe.

Narrow definition due to functionalist and Marxist views of educational progress Treated like a historical object

Today, learning in the form of apprenticeship occurs when high levels of knowledge and skill are in demand.

Yucatec Midwives

Informal, family Teaching is not central to the midwives or to learning

Apprenticeship happens as a way of, and in the course of, daily life. Telling stories, etc.

Vai and Gola Tailors (W. Africa)

More formal learning than midwives Learn skills in a backward order

1. Learn to sew, press clothes 2. Learn to cut 3. Learn to measure

Naval Quartermasters

Very formal, go to school

School teaches terminology and concepts No real experience

Problem: Can pick up bad habits

On the job training

Learn general tasks first Learn specific tasks last

Meat Cutters

Formal, school and on the job training In school

Learn skills easy to teach in classroom, but not used in supermarket

Wholesale cuts Sharpening knives

Apprentices placed in most needed position, and may never leave. Position at work doesnt allow apprentices to watch others and learn, or be watched.

Nondrinking Alcoholics

Several AA meetings a week with near-peers and adepts.

Old-timers tell stories Smaller discussion meetings

Newcomers gradually become old-timers * Personal stories are told to provide a model of alcoholism. Newcomers arent told how to tell their stories, but most learn how.

Exposed to models Interaction

Ch. 4 In Communities of Practice

Goals:

Discuss the structuring of resources that shape the process and content of learning possibilities and apprentices changing perspectives on what is known and done.[91]

How do they learn this stuff?

How is identity and motivation generated as newcomers become old-timers?

In Communities of Practice:

Structuring Resources for Learning in Practice

Master-apprentice relation isnt what defines a newcomer in all cases

Midwives, tailors, nondrinking alcoholics

In all cases, there is little observable teaching, the more basic phenomenon is learning.[91]

Community creates the curriculum Learners, as peripheral participants, can develop a view of what the whole enterprise is about, and what is to be learned.[93]

In Communities of Practice:

Structuring Resources for Learning in Practice (contd)

Apprentices learn mostly in relation with other apprentices Must decenter common notions of mastery

Mastery resides not in the master but in the organization of the community of practice of which master is part.[94]

This moves focus from teaching to learning.

In Communities of Practice: The Place of Knowledge: Participation, Learning Curricula, Communities of Practice.

Apprentices gradually assemble a general idea of what constitutes the practice of the community Who is involved What they do What everyday life is like How masters talk, walk, work What other learners are doing Community offers exemplars (grounds and motivation for learning) Masters Finished products More advanced apprentices

In Communities of Practice: The Place of Knowledge: Participation, Learning Curricula, Communities of Practice. (contd)

Two types of schooling

Learning curriculum

Situated opportunities for the improvisational development of new practice A field of learning resources in everyday practice viewed from the perspective of learners. Constructed for the instruction of newcomers Supplies (and thereby limits) structuring resources for learning.

Teaching curriculum

In Communities of Practice: The Place of Knowledge: Participation, Learning Curricula, Communities of Practice. (contd)

Learning curriculum is characteristic of a community. It assumes members

Have different interests Make diverse contributions to activity Hold varied viewpoints

In Communities of Practice: The Problem of Access: Transparency and Sequestration

To become a full member of a community of practice requires access to a wide range of

Ongoing activity Old-timers

Could virtual agents be considered old-timers?

Other members of the community Info, resources, and opportunities for participation

Transparency: when a learner understands the inner workings of a black box resource and understands its significance for use.

In Communities of Practice: The Problem of Access: Transparency and Sequestration (contd)

Communities of practice sequester newcomers

Reproductive cycle

birth of newcomer, not baby

Schoolchildren are legitimately peripheral, but kept from participation in the social world

In Communities of Practice: Discourse and Practice

Learning to talk the trade

Difference between talking about a practice from outside and talking within it.

Stories are important

Learning is supported by conversations and stories about problematic and difficult cases

Technician war story

Telling the story is a tool of diagnosis and reinterpretation

In Communities of Practice: Motivation and Identity: Effects of Participation

Newcomers initial tasks are

Short and simple Low cost of errors Little responsibility Not a lot of time involved Distinction between play and work is fuzzy Intrinsic rewards shouldnt be used. The value of contribution to the community is the reward

In Communities of Practice: Motivation and Identity: Effects of Participation (contd)

Schools dont do this (initial tasks)

Consequences

Identity of learners becomes an explicit object of change, instead of view of self as object.[112] Exchange value replaces use value

Test taking takes over (parasitic practice) No cultural identity of the activity No field of mature practice for what is being learned

Another note. Current analyses of schools

Assumes teacher and pupil share the goal of the main activity

Ch. 5 Conclusion

Legitimate peripheral participation

Moves in a centripetal direction Motivated by

Location in a field of mature practice Growing use value of participation Newcomers desires to become full practitioners

Remember the penguins!

Reference

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1999). Situated Learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.