Situated Learning.

Fitting in with my recent work with Online Learning Communities is Situated Learning that contends that learning takes place in the same context in which it is applied. A work colleague recently completed a project where a traditionally “dull” course was given a context in which the students could relate what they were learning to a “real” situation. This lead to a far greater level of engagement by the students and the results they achieved were vastly improved over previous offerings of the same course. According to Lave (1991).

“Lave argues that learning as it normally occurs is a function of the activity, context and culture in which it occurs (i.e., it is situated). This contrasts with most classroom learning activities which involve knowledge which is abstract and out of context. Social interaction is a critical component of situated learning — learners become involved in a “community of practice” which embodies certain beliefs and behaviors to be acquired. As the beginner or newcomer moves from the periphery of this community to its center, they become more active and engaged within the culture and hence assume the role of expert or old-timer. Furthermore, situated learning is usually unintentional rather than deliberate.”

Herrington et. al. (2000) have a model to use as a guide for developing online learning environments with a view to integrating situated learning. Its key elements are:
•    Authentic context that reflects the way that knowledge will be used.
•    Authentic activities.
•    Access to expert performances and the modeling of processes.
•    Multiple roles and perspectives.
•    Collaborative construction of knowledge.
•    Reflection.
•    Articulation.
•    Coaching and scaffolding.
•    Authentic assessment.

Keeping in mind everyone’s opinions are different based on their prior experience and my prior experience comes from the practical application of technology in real world situations. I’m astounded at how learners are expected to learn while detached from the situation where that learning will be applied. The problem I’m currently analyzing is how to bring integrate situated learning to a degree program as opposed to a single course. With a single course you can introduce role plays, simulations etc to set the context in which the learner can learn in a situated manner but how do you add this level of enculturation to an entire degree program with a topically diverse subset of courses?

The way I’m leaning at the moment is to take advantage of the industry practitioners who have volunteered to assist with the online learning network or community of practice. With these folk divulging real world situations that are currently occurring within their professional lives and describing there experiences and actions in particular scenarios I’m hoping that the students will at least get a glimpse of how the topics they are currently learning will fit into their chosen profession once they enter the work force.

Herrington (2000). Towards a New Tradition of Online Instruction: Using Situated Learning Theory to Design Web-Based Units. ASCILITE.

Lave, J. (1990). “Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.”

RSS is the glue

I often get asked to explain RSS so I thought I’d create a quick blog post that explains a little about RSS and how it can be used. Rather than reinvent the wheel and bang on about what RSS is I thought I’d link to some existing resources from around the web that explain RSS better than I ever could.

A good explanation of RSS can be found at this blog. One of the interesting things you can do with an RSS feed is to incorporate the feed’s content into your web site or wiki so your content is continually updating without any effort on your behalf. My unit’s Wiki takes RSS feeds from blogs and delicious ( a social bookmarking site ) and displays the information at the bottom of the page.

Yahoo Pipes is a free service that allows you to manipulate RSS feeds to generate content suited to your purposes. An example of this is the RSS feeds on this web page where I’ve taken a variety of RSS feeds and filtered, joined and truncated them in order to list only the information applicable for my purposes. This information is also dynamic in that it is constantly updating without my intervention.

Learning and Knowledge Domains

I’m currently reading a book by George Siemens titled ‘Knowing Knowledge‘ which talks about four learning domains that are encapsulated by context.

• Transmission Learning. Learning as courses. Developmental and formative learning happens in this domain. The learning in brought into a system and exposed to structured knowledge.
• Emergence Learning. Learning as cognition and reflection. Personal learning and innovation happens in this domain. The learner acquires and creates knowledge.
• Acquisition domain. Learning is self selected. Group, collaborative and needs-based learning happens in this domain. The learner is in control of defining the needed knowledge and actively enters the process in order to assuage personal motivations and interests.
• Accretion learning. Learning as a continual embedded process. Most learning occurs in this domain. This is a function of the learners environment where they forage for real life knowledge when and where it’s needed.

Theses domains appear to have some relevance to the BProfComm online learning network project that we are currently undertaking. The individual courses fall into the transmission learning category and are hosted on the Learning Management System. The LMS in it’s current form struggles to facilitate any of the remaining three domains and it’s here I hope the online learning network can assist the students by helping to provide a context for their learning. With the students studying individual courses at an institution that is predominately course based I’m hoping that the online learning network will expose them to some real world knowledge brought by industry practitioners and past students thereby giving them a context for their learning within their chosen discipline.

Siemens, G. (2006). Knowing Knowledge. Retrieved from www.knowingknowledge.com.

Bprofcomm Learning network

Well, work has started on the bprofcomm learning network with a meeting today with one of the key academics involved. The plan at this stage is to develop the main page with a minimum of features and have a small group of students access this and give some feedback on what they would like to see on the page. Most of the page is made up of RSS feeds from other locations like feedburner and yahoo pipes so once we have the initial page I expect the work required to maintain the site to be minimal.

The basic principles guiding this project are based on a paper and the slideshow that is viewable below.