While reading the four articles, I came across a term that I had previously never encountered: “academic panacea” (Anderson, et al., 1996). While not a major portion of the argument from those in the cognitive camp, it does represent a critique on situated learning. This particular critique is aimed at the fact that cooperative learning is not the end all solution for improving educational practices.
There were 4 claims made by those supporting situated cognition and these claims were a focal point for an argument with those favoring the cognitive approach. One side, the situated (Greeno), was arguing the social perspective of education and the other side, the cognitive (Anderson, Reder, and Simon), was arguing the individual perspective. Both sides cited numerous research supporting why their claims were correct and the other side was wrong.
The back and forth arguments were somewhat entertaining and in the end, it appears that both sides decided to play nice and join together to form a “unified” version of learning that takes into account both sides of the argument. Always refreshing to see people “playing nice”. All kidding aside, I think the Anderson, et al. article written in 2000 is what most (and I will speak for most of us) have been thinking: that there has to be a combination of ideas; one theory holds true in one instance and another holds true in another. The authors from both camps agreed on the following: 1) individual and social perspectives on activity are both fundamentally important in education, 2) learning can be general, and abstractions can be efficacious, but they sometimes aren’t, 3) situated and cognitive approaches can cast light on different aspects of the educational process, and both should be pursued vigorously, and 4) educational innovations should be informed by the available scientific knowledge base and should be evaluated and analyzed with rigorous research methods; the advancement of education requires continued research efforts on a large scale.
I think that the combination of both leads to a better understanding of learning and should be used to plan education accordingly. As all four authors state on page 13 of Anderson, et al (2000) “As we progress toward this goal, let us use what we learn through this research-from all of the productive perspectives-to inform those who are responsible for forming policy concerning school instruction, so that our children will not be the victims of well-intentioned but ill-informed educational practices.”
Oh, I do like the other new term that I discovered: “situa-babel” (Anderson, et al, 1997, page 19).
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I also agree that I did learn more about each side in their arguments, but being of the camp that there is never a one size fits all approach to anything, I appreciated their “make nice” approach and think that both philosophy’s add merit to the discussion.
Of course this muddies the water, because as scientists, it seems we want THE answer to things in a nice, replicable and testable way. I guess that’s why I’m so intrigued in the new directions of science subjects; integration. We see this with Astrobiology, Nanotechnolgy, Complex Systems Science, and others. Learning and knowledge acquisition is the same thing…it’s not neat and tidy.
Situa-babel…it does bring up the problem…educational terminology that is either ill-defined or defined differently by everyone who uses it! Inquiry is one of those examples.
AS far as page 13: Didn’t Dewey warn about applying ed research to the classroom too soon?
I agree that it seems as if both sides (well not sides, maybe lenses?) have valid information about a classroom. A teacher needs to look at their students and their classroom structure,activivities in as many ways as possible.
I guss I was a little disappointed that they “played nice” – the more they argued, the more information I gleaned about the theories.