By Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.

One of the most effective strategies for achieving the desired outcomes in an online course, particularly for adult and non-traditional students, involves what has come to be known as "situated learning," which makes connections between experience(s) and incorporates the use of an effective community of practice.

What this means in concrete terms to the eLearner is that

a) Learners establish "communities" in which they interact.  These communities are often found in the discussion board area, but can also be established via blogs, instant messaging, podcasts, and list-serves.

b)  Students learn by and through interaction.  What they learn is a matter of how they are guided along various topics.

c)  Shared goals and interests create "membership" in the community.

d)  When the community members make connections between the course content and their background, interest, and experience, they are making a place for discussion, and thus "situating" the learning.  Thus, "situated learning" means that there is a connection to a concrete concept, task, or objective which relates to past experience, interests, or knowledge.  Individuals bring their perspectives to the learning space and share.

Lave and Wenger (1991) discuss how individuals learn from each other and from the "experts" in the context of day-to-day lives.  In their influential work, Situated Learning, Lave and Wenger discuss how communities of practice made the learning occur through a process of engagement.

What this means to the eLearner is that there are certain types of assignments that can tap into the energy of situated learning.  Here are a few:

a)  Writing assignments that allow you to connect your experience and interests to the course topics;

b)  Discussion board threads that encourage you to share your experience(s) with other people;

c)  Activities that encourage you to engage in social participation, via blog, podcast, or other route.

Learning depends on relationships between people.  Thus, it is very important to let yourself become involved in discussions. If you feel hesitancy, it is useful to step back a moment and determine precisely why and where you are feeling a barrier.  The discussion board interaction will have definitely pay off if the topics relate to your experience and interest.  This relates to past experiences as well as recent ones.

If you are thinking that this concept echoes the basic notion of apprenticeship, you are completely correct.  Lave and Wenger also refer to the effectiveness of apprenticeship in learning.  They point out that apprenticeship has tended to be neglected in formal, text-based learning that follows traditional methods (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 29).  For Lave and Wenger, learning is most effective when the individuals are active participants and they have choices in the following ways:  a) the persons they associate with; b) how they apply experience to learning activities.

Anna Douglas (2000) discusses her experiences in developing effective teaching practices in a course she taught on politics. She had an opportunity to develop teaching materials as well as to structure student activities.  As she reflects on her own experiences as a student and ponders the course in Marxism that made a huge impact on her life, she wonders what the magic ingredients were.  What made the experience such a positive one?  Drawing on the theories of L. Vygotsky, she decides that one of the most effective approaches is to incorporate "everyday concepts" (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 219).  In other words, the activities, ideas, and social interactions of one's daily life or lived experience are vital, and that cognition is internalized when she engages in activities that have a bearing or relation to both the course concepts and one's activities (Douglas, 2000, p. 156).

Others have also observed how informal learning communities emerge in the workplace and in school.  For example, Fuller and Fuller (2005) describe how older, experienced learners in setting ranging from steel mills to metal finishing responded to incentives to retrain and diversify.  They found that the older workers perceived that they had learned their jobs originally by an apprenticeship model, and "on the job."  However, they found that in retraining, the apprenticeship model was not practical or even viable.  So, training and education took place off-site in organized training sessions.  Interestingly, Fuller and Fuller determine that the main conditions of learning involved group work and active discussions between team members about how the new procedures related to old ones.  In essence, this created what could be considered to be "active scaffolding" (Nash's own term).  

What are the implications for eLearning?  The clear finding is that discussions and interactions with others in a productive, goal-centered way are vital.  They should encourage sharing and comparison of past experience and should resonate with current issues.   Most importantly, the success that this approach engenders is very motivating and meaningful to one's life.

References

Douglas, A. (2000).  Learning as participation in social practices:  Interpreting student perspectives on learning.  Changing English. 7(2): 153-165.

Fuller, A. & Fuller, L.  (2005).  Older and wiser?:  Workplace learning from the perspective of experienced employees.  International Journal of Lifelong Education.  24(1): 21-30.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991).  Situated Learning.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  

Vygotsky, L.  (1987).  The Collected Works of L. S. Vygostky:  Problems of General Psychology.  ed. and trans. by R. W. Rieber and S. Carton.  NY:  Plenum Press.