Lave takes one more step into social learning this week. Lave starts to answer some of the questions I had about cognitive apprenticeship. When thinking about what is knowing and what is learning, this quote helped me get started on my own analysis of Lave. “…[L]earning, thinking, and knowing are relations among people in activity in, with, and arising from the socially and culturally structured world” (Lave 51).
This next part gets into the weeds a bit I think, but it makes sense to me.
Previously, we as a class had really only related knowing to the individual and could have compared it to other people’s level of knowing, but this train of thought implies that there is some kind of universal knowledge level that everyone tries to get to. Lave suggests that these things, learning, knowing, and thinking are only quantifiable when there is another member of that community to compare it to.
Lave views learning as, “becoming a full participant, a member” of a social community. I believe that Lave thinks that informal learning situations are just as relevant to a student as classroom or formal situations. Another stretch, but since learning and knowing come from social activities, any events where a student interacts with anything can be considered social. This implies that informal learning is just as valuable as a resource to students as formal opportunities.
My first reaction to this theory is that it is almost like if cognitive apprenticeship had a tall glass of Vygotsky. I have always liked the idea that learning is a social activity as well as apprenticeship on a basic level. With the introduction of peripheral participation, it better defines the learning phase before a student becomes a master or achieves “full participation” within that community. All the while, the overarching theme of “learning is doing” is still present.
Hi Mitch, I really enjoyed how you described Lave’s theory to be “almost like cognitive apprenticeship had a tall glass of Vygotsky”. Lave certainly embodies the idea that learning is a social activity as well as an apprenticeship at a basic level. I was also intrigued by how you made the implication that informal learning is just as valuable to students as formal opportunities. Can you think of any examples of experiences from your life that would support this claim?