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process, it's a trajectory.
In this second presentation on situated cognition, we'll talk about some of the more
detailed assumptions of situated cognition. So, as I said before, within the situated
cognition approach context is everything. This context refers to a variety of different
levels the social, physical, interpersonal, community and individual levels. The social
context refers to the social group or social setting. Do the students in the group really
know each other? Do they have experience interacting? We've probably all gone to a
workshop or something where very early on their asked to get into groups and work
with people. It's really awkward because you don't know these people and you don't
have experience interacting with them. Whereas one much later on in the workshop or
course, if you had to get into this situation often it's whole lot more come to believe so
you can move right into that situation a lot more easily. The physical context refers to
the physical setting in the learning context, is it normal classroom or computer lab, so
what's the physical environment like and how's that continue dues sieve or not to
learning. The interpersonal context refers to the nature of the relationship between the
student and the teacher or between the student and the other students. You probably
have all been classrooms where there is a really positive dynamic and that can really
facilitate learning. But in learning situations where the dynamic is negative, where
there's some negative interaction or negative feelings between students or between
students and a teacher, it can really interfere with learning to extent where people don't
want to interact or don't want to communicate with each other. The community
context context refers to the larger culture setting. So is learning taking place at a
school or church or at a home. And the individual context refers to what's going on
within the individual. We all know that mood, health, well being and so on, effect the
ability to learn. So we have to consider that in terms of what's happening inside the
individual and how does this interact with all the other contextual levels. A normally
outgoing person may not be so outgoing in one particular situation because they don't
feel good. Or because they're cold in the classroom or in a foreign environment. So
some or all of these context may change from one learning situation to another.
Situated cognition theorist argued that all these factors are important parts of the
learning process. So it's through an individual's interaction with his or her environment
that learning really occurs. One process in which this interaction may occur, according
to situation model theorist, is called legitimate peripheral participation. We can see
what this means by really breaking it down. Legitimate refers to the idea that a person
has to be an accepted part of a social culture for learning of that culture to really occur.
So, for example, think about the anthropologist that observed primitive cultures.
Because they're not accepted parts of that culture, the natives may either try to fool
them or hide things from them. My husband several years ago did a thesis on the
English language learning system in the schools in Yap which is an idle in Micronesia.
People there in the education system had previously been burned by anthropologist in
the past, so they were skeptical of his motives when he arrived. It took a lot of work on
his part on developing trusting connections and he actually had to spend a fair amount
of time there so he could conduct his research. Peripheral refers to the idea of how
involved is a person in the culture. You may be accepted member of a culture, but you
may not be fully involved in the day-to-day life of the culture. So in the example of my
husband's thesis in Yap, he eventually became accepted in that culture but he was still a
very peripheral figure. Participation refers to the idea of your identity with a culture.
Do you yourself feel your part of the group or do you feel your imposter. Your feelings
about involvement and participation in a particular culture can affect your learning
despite others feelings about your acceptance in the group. So in the example of my
husband's thesis, if he had been intimidated by others in the culture despite his
acceptance, he may not have made himself available for important learning
experiences. However, he felt very accepted within a group so he made himself
available and actually learned quite a bit about the English language learning systems in
Yap. So legitimate peripheral participation doesn't just happen overnight. You can't just
move in and say okay I'm a part of this culture now, so now I'm going to learn from your
perspective. It's a process in which an individual goes from being a novice in a culture
to being a full participant. So consider the process of going from being a new faculty
member or teacher, or even a student teacher to being a faculty a member, whether
your teaching at a college or teaching in an elementary or secondary school. There's a
process of acceptance within that culture. From the legitimate end you have to be a
faculty member to go to faculty meetings and have faculty on your ID card or a paycheck
for that matter. The peripheral part of it would refer to how involved you are in your
faculty. Do you know everybody? Do you know all the on politics of your department or
school? And do you participate in departmental or school activities? Participation
refers the idea of how you feel about yourself as a faculty member. So I know a lot of
new faculty members in higher Ed feel that within the first few months of the first year
of their position they feel like imposters, because you feel like you've been a student all
the way up to this point and all of a sudden you’re a faculty member and you feel like
somebody going to find me out. But that quickly changes because you become more
and more involved in the culture. Now because legitimate peripheral participation is a
process, you can think of it like your development within a culture. You can talk about
the different stages of this development in terms of a learning trajectory. And you go
from being on the periphery or the edge, to the sort of being inside, then being on the
outside again. So at the peripheral stage, for example, when your grad student you
might have more of an in with the faculty than you did as an under grad in that you have
more experience and more interaction with faculty. You might know some of what is
going on in a department or in a program, but your still on the outside looking in. At the
inbound stage, let's say when you're just about to finish your degree, either you’re a
student teacher or you're a Ph.D. student, sort of at the end of your graduate program.
Even though you might be an accepted part of a group, you might have just gotten a
new job as faculty member, you still feel a little bit like an outsider, that feeling I
described about being a first year faculty member at the U. At the insider stage your
seasoned faculty member and you feel like your accepted and integral part of your
group. At the boundary stage, maybe you're sort of heading toward retirement. Maybe
you don't teach full-time any more, or you've started consulting or for some other
reason your interests become divided between your job and another experience. Even
though your part of the group, you don't feel so much like it. You feel like you’re a little
bit more on the periphery. And then finally you go back to the outsider stage again.
You leave your job, you retire, you move, for whatever reason you're no longer a part of
that culture. So shifting in and out of a culture isn't just an on or off situation it's
process, it's a trajectory.