The ideas in cognitive apprenticeship can be compared to Skinner’s model and conceptual change. Compared to Skinner, I think there is a similarity that learning needs to be situated in a behavior. With Skinner, this is obvious. With cognitive apprenticeship, we (educators) know that students have learned something when they can ‘use’ their knowledge in some real world context. A comparison to conceptual change can be made with the idea of ‘tools.’ C.A. discusses knowledge as a set of tools. I think this has a direct comparison to the collection of ideas that we said a concept was. The main difference is that to fully know, you have to use this tool set. In other words, you can have a fully mapped out concept in your mind, but not fully ‘know’ it until you apply your knowledge to the ‘real world.’
I am still trying to consider how Na’ilah Nasir’s ideas fit into this theory of learning. I don’t think they do. In fact, I think cognitive apprenticeship does a poor job of promoting equity and anti-ractist teaching in the classroom. I think there was an attempt to consider that learning has cultural implications. In fact, the theory definitely says that knowledge is dependent on ‘enculturation.’ This dependence is certainly not equitable though, especially in science teaching. Science has its own culture, which has heavy white European influences. If I am to situate science learning in this culture, which students benefit the most? Which students miss out, or feel uncomfortable in the subject? I think this idea of situating science learning in the culture of science is going to marginalize your students. To me, learning science should be about learning your own ways to interpret the world around you. This can definitely be done without “enculturation.”
I also think it’s notable that each theory we have read about includes some subject as its example. Skinner used math because it that is a good application of the theory. Likewise, conceptual change used science. Cognitive apprenticeship used vocabulary in the beginning to show the problems with current teaching methods, then suggested ways to improve. There were also math examples, but I think it is interesting that vocabulary was used as a way to show how learning definitions isn’t effective, but using language is. This is probably not important at all, but just thought I’d make a note of it.
Hi Kevin, you raise an interesting considerations about how Nasir’s ideas fit into Cognitive Apprenticeship. I agree with your sentiments that it needs to be more equitable to all students, so how do we shift towards a more equitable teaching view? How do we construct a proper culture that isn’t centered on whiteness that we can provide these students? Can we do this at the individual level, or in order to reach an equitable view of cognitive apprenticeship do we need larger-scale changes?
The way I understood “situated” I think is different from what you understood. For me situated means that you learn something in a real context where that knowledge is used. For example, you learn science working as researchers do in their labs. For this reason, I would not define what Skinner proposes situated learning. It is interesting to me what you say about equity because I did not think about equity in this context. I think that this approach is equitable because if students learn science in a lab they are not even learning that much about “scientists”, but they are learning the science practices, how to verify a hypothesis.
You bring up interesting issues – how do conceptual change folks think about practice? how is the authentic activity different from behavior? You point about Nasir and science having a white supremicist culture seems apt, but I am less sure about your thinking about teaching without enculturation (at least from Brown’s POV). How can that happen if all learning is embedded in activity and thus culture? In terms of using examples of learning in their argument, that seems reasonable as the is the phenomena they are trying to explain, but the examples they pick and explain also say something about their thinking about learning.