This week I learned about the authentic learning, which is totally a new term for me to learn. Before studied this term, I went through the conception of apprenticeship, followed by legitimate peripheral participation. Both are related to the situated learning. At the first sight of apprenticeship, I came upon the ancient learning model between masters and trainees, which could be counted as a rudiment of learning activity. The apprenticeship mostly occurs in handcraft industry in the old times. In terms of this conception development itself, this notion was a matter of legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice. From Lave’s article, I learned that the evolution from apprenticeship to situated is closely related to history and culture contexts. He told us the situated learning means that some of people’s thoughts and actions were located in space and time, especially in the social settings. Then it comes to the second shift from situated learning to legitimate peripheral participation. This shift occurred because the scholars were aware that learning is an integral part of generative social practice in the lived-in world. Hence the latter theory was included as a demonstration of engagement in people’s social practice requiring learning as an integral constituent.
As for authentic learning, I had some misunderstandings from the beginning. I thought it as a kind of imitation of learning in which a context similar to the practical settings. From Herrington’s demonstration, I learned that authentic context is the cornerstone of the situated learning model, the fundamental premise upon which the theory rests. However, what it focused on is to build connection between students learning from school and the real-world issues, projects or application related to the learners. The key point of this notion falls on the connection, rather than the imitation. I refreshed my cognition on this conception in this week’s learning.
Reference:
CTGV (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt) (1993). Anchored instruction and situated cognition revisited. Educational Technology, 33(3), 52-70.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press (Note: pp. 29-43 only)
Herrington, J. & Oliver, R. (2000). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. ETR&D, 48(3), pp. 23-48.
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