Full Circle Associates

Susan Smith Nash had a nice piece back in December about the challenges of using situated learning in an online environment. XplanaZine
She starts off with a nice explanation of situated learning (which I often crudely call "learning by doing):

"Situated learning" is a term popularized by Lave and Wenger (1991), and it refers to the kind of cognitive activity and knowledge acquisition that takes place in an apprenticeship-type setting. It emphasizes the following elements: content, real life, and mentoring. It involves developing an awareness of both tacit and explicit knowledge. Situated learning is on the other end of a continuum of learning that would place rote memorization on one end and team projects on the other, and it requires the application of concepts to solve problems, provide explanations, and to develop action steps and strategies. An important element in situated learning is social interaction.

She then goes on to give a F2F example, cite the challenges in moving this online, then a set of guidlines for situated learning online.

Effective situated e-learning requires the following elements:

1. Needs Assessment. This is vital in order to understand how to motivate e-learners and to select content and activities that connect to experiences.
2. Alignment of content. Make sure that the content is relevant to the tasks, and that it provides scaffolding.
3. Experience-Based Learning. Encourage connections with current, past, or collective experience through'

1. Reflective writing
2. Discussion topics that make connections between course content and experience
3. Discussion topics that encourage sharing of experience
4. Guided discussion responses that reward appropriate sharing of experience
5. In-depth looks at specific examples ( Barton etal, 2000)
6. Meta-analysis of the particular in order to get at the general, or universal

4. Readings / Texts

1. Provide conceptual frameworks
2. Provide theoretical underpinnings
3. Discuss how to apply concepts to case studies

5. Virtual Teams. Develop projects or group activities that require that individual members of teams prepare components of a report, then share.
6. Encourage social identity production through the team activities.

1. Build a narrative about a problem that encourages role-playing
2. Encourage teams to be flexible and let identities or roles emerge
3. Role-playing is agreed-upon and mutually understood by team members
7. Build in a sense of relevancy and urgency

1. Choose topics that mean something to the team members
2. Develop a solution-centered approach
3. Allow new topics to be proposed that connect to e-learners' real-life issues and challenges

8. Embed theory and/or conceptual tools (statistics, etc.) in the experiential activities so that they are a part of the problem-solving or thinking process, not something outside and unrelated.
9. Encourage self-awareness of the fact that a specialized language is being developed in the groups as learning activities are centering around experience and experience-based tasks.

1. Lists of terms and definitions that connect to the tasks
2. Specialized uses and applications of terms
3. An awareness of the new way that signs, symbols, activities are being 'read' -- through the lenses of the context and goals (rather than the other way around) (Gee 2004).

As e-learners engage in a focused, situated type learning in their courses, new internal practices will emerge, and knowledge transfers will take place, not only in the 'nuts and bolts' content areas, but in the way that individuals solve problems, think about themselves in relation to a group or a task, and shift their ideas about themselves and others. It is often a subtle shift of orientation and thinking, and yet the outcomes are vastly different in a course that has incorporated situated e-learning."

I like this list, but I probably would have suggested a different order, with #6, 5, 7, 8 and 9 all competing for first place!