Situated Cognition

I think that a lot of junior high students are also use to gaining the answer before they need to apply it in a situation or activity. However, this is not how it is done in our daily lives. As the year goes on and depending upon the complexity of the concept, I like to have my students do an activity or try to solve a problem before they know the answer. I always have students that become frustrated, but I usually revisit the activity after we have learned the concept to ensure that they have made the connection. I also have to grade it a little easier if I haven't given them all of the information before the grading date.

You bring up a very good point. I too get very overwhelmed when I don't get sufficient information to complete the assignment. I think that a good facilitator give enough information to guide students, but not too much to hinder the learning.

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Do you feel that situated cognition necessarily is learning without doing? I felt that my lesson (Disease Detective) was situated cognition, but the students definitely were doing something the whole time (solving a problem). I hope I didn’t miss something here. J

 

I, too, have found my definition of learning becoming more similar as we are now in the later weeks. I think it’s more deep than it was the first few weeks, and I find myself subscribing to a number of ‘parts’ of each learning theory. That will help me as I teach because I will have more of a variety of teaching styles now, hopefully reaching more of a variety of learners.

 

Paul - I think I am much in the same boat. I don't find that my idea of learning changes much week to week. I wish I had more teachers like you growing up. The idea of being taught how to learn was not applied to my learning until college. You sound like a great teacher.

You brought up a very good point in your post.  I always thought at least for me that is was easier to learn as you go but I didn't stop to realize that for some people it could be frustrating to do something without fully learning it for feeling comfortable performing a task without the proper skills being presented to them first.  I think you just reinforced that there are so many different learners out there and what works for one person could be very frustrating for another.  I'm glad I read your post to remind myself how difficult it must be for teachers to settle on a certain theory or theories for a lesson.