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When I read about situated cognition, I saw that cognitive constructivism, social constructivism and situated cognition are the same in manner that all reject objectivist point of view to teaching. However, since they are three different theories, I wonder what makes them different from each other.  I encountered this article in which differences are well emphasized. According to the article: Cognitive constructivism says that people learn by building on their previous experiences with the environment. Since individuals have different history of experiences, same type of didactic teaching is not effective. Cognitive constructivism focuses on mainly individual. Social constructivism purports that knowledge are co-constructed by members of groups from different cultural backgrounds and learning environments should foster collaborative learning. Social constructivism mainly focuses on groups rather than individuals. Situated cognition, on the other hand, suggests that regardless of the fact that concepts are handled as individuals or as groups, if those concepts are not taught within their actual-natural context, learning of those concepts are meaningless and inert. Situated cognition mainly focuses on the context.

There are many theories in this page that we should be interested in in this page as learning sciences students. An example of two groundbreaking research results in learning sciences is (1) Entwistle's Phenomenography theory This conceptual framework focuses on the experience of learning from the student's perspective and is based upon a phenomenological approach to research. Entwistle explains: "Our task is thus to describe more clearly how learning takes place in higher education and to point out how teaching and assessment affect the quality of learning. From these descriptions teachers should be able to draw their own lessons about how to facilitate their students' learning" (Marton, Hounsell & Entwistle, 1984, p.1). (2) Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory According to cognitive dissonance theory, there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions (i.e., beliefs, opinions). When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance. In the case of a discrepancy between attitudes and behavior, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accommodate the behavior.

Situated cognition theory

I like this website; it gives the connection between situated learning and current educational necessities like modeling, scaffolding. In the class, these are expected from us and it really helps students visualize the target point. Thank you for sharing it with us.

I think Vitamin is one of the best cogntive tools in Turkish. They have very comprehensive work online.

I am not sure if Vitamin is tracing the learner development. I will try to ask it to one of my friends eırking at Vitamin.

I agree with Halil, Vitamin is like distance education programs of Anatolian University. It offers videos presenting he topic and tests of the related subjects. Learners do not take immediate feedback which lead to the individualized progress in the program.

They say "No one else does what we do" while mentioning their interdisciplinary approach. They say that "The learning sciences field emerged more than two decades ago after researchers found that what worked in a laboratory simply did not hold up with real children, teachers, classrooms and workplaces. They saw that learning technologies, which held great promise for solving education's problems, were not being transferred to classrooms and schools. Cognitive scientists, educational and instructional psychologists, and computer scientists worked together to put their ideas and knowledge to use to improve the learning outcomes for a diverse group." The institute basically do two things: 1 - They identify the critical challenges in education, literacy, mathematics, science and the social sciences. 2- They work to find solutions. Their main aim is to create learning systems for 21st century classrooms thanks to interdisciplinary research in teaching and learning. They believe that learning is a complex process and so they get benefit from different disciplines (e.g. anthropology, computer science, education, linguistics, psychology and sociology) to share knowledge and best practices on education. At their another webpage, they define learning science as a science which "focuses on how to create new, improved and equitable learning environments for 21st century learners.". In order accomplish this, they focus on four questions: 1- How do people learn? 2- What do we want them to know and be able to do? 3- How can we design learning environments that help them learn? 4- How can we monitor what they are learning? They offer a Ph.D. program to raise future learning scientists.

When situated learning theory (SLT) is investigated, it can be seen that most of the articles or documents mention learning by doing within an actual context. The first thing that comes to mind is the real world environment while someone mentions the SLT. What if we want to form a "legitimate peripheral participation" environment to learn a concept by the boundaries of online platforms? How can we design online platforms by using situated learning theory?

"Participation Learning becomes a social process dependent upon transactions with others. Learning is not separated from the world of action but exists in robust, complex, social environments made up of actors, actions, and situations. How to incorporate participation in online learning? *Create discussion boards to enable students to reflect socially *Encourage engagement in discussions and issues presented *Require students to present/defend their arguments in forums, discussion groups, bulletin boards *Encourage students to engage in critical reflection with other *Instructors should continually assess the growth of the student, and let the student know " These are the principles applied in our 542 course. We are experiencing situated cognition in progress.

The site gives an overview of Cognitive Tutoring experiences of K-12 Education teachers and students in Carneige Learning Centre. They talk about the benefits and so.

A center for cognitive tutor program. The definition from the website: "Our research focuses on the development of Cognitive Tutors -- instructional systems that support guided learning-by-doing. Drawing from the disciplines of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology and human computer interaction, we develop systems that provide individualized assistance to students as they work on challenging real-world problems in complex domains such as computer programming, algebra and geometry. Individualized guidance is made possible using detailed computational models of skills and misconceptions underlying a learning domain."

ACM library has so many article, publications and resources on cognitive tutoring and intelligent tutoring systems. If you are interested, you can check more here. Also METU has the subscription to ACM.

I know it's related to our previous topic, but still I like the way she explains; a clear model of the thousands of little things that have to happen as we move from novice to expert and wanted to share with you.

We will talk more about cognitive load theory and its implications in education research later this semester. Thanks for sharing.

In this article Roy Pea, who is one of the pioneers of learning sciences, discussing how computers are changing our cognitive lifes beyond amplifying. Article first supports this proposition, then discusses implications of applying computer-based technologies into education. Lastly it suggests updating educational practices in order to be harmonious with this new emerging cognitive life. This article is also important for being quite early, it constitutes one of the foot stones of the learning sciences area.

I've watched the video twice and in the end I've felt some concerns about the results of the studies. In the "how people learn" part, researchers were testing the storage and connection system of the brain through some high-tech tools. However, does neuropsychology provide enough evidence on the functioning of the brains? Can we generalize the results to all people from all cultures? I am not the one who is against neuropsychology, but for me one discipline may not give an appropriate answer to such a deep question. My second concern is about the integration of computer programs into the curriculum as a major learning tool. We see a program where "Betty" is speaking and giving feedback on the video. The program seems user friendly, but what about the negative aspects and limitations of the integration of technology into learning? Ok, I agree that we have to adapt to the rapid technological changes in the society. However, is technology the key to all learning processes? Plus, the program is designed on the mapping of the concepts. Does concept mapping make a curriculum compelling all the time? I am not sure about all characteristics of the program, but if it hasn't been designed in a challenging style and if all students come up with the same products, then how will they develop their knowledge and reasoning abilities? I couldn't find an answer to that. As for the part "effective teaching", I am in the same opinion with the researchers that there should be a connection between the real world and the subject taught. Moreover, I think the integration of the disciplines is difficult but a very good way of giving meaning to life. Besides, in the video we see teachers as a guide, as a facilitator and there is no doubt that providing individual support to the students helps students feel more involved.

Firstly, even if it is designed by utilizing modern technology and different understanding, which makes it a more developed and complicated one, the program used in the video reminded me the teaching machines of old times. It gives the priority to the cognitive aspect of learning. This seems to be a one-dimensional approach which underestimates the social aspect of learning. I think the value of classroom interaction for effective learning cannot be replaced by any kind of computer programs. Research on brain is really important and it provides very useful insights for learning and instructional activities. However, it should be supported by the findings of research by social psychologists as well. The very same individual may perform at varying levels when he is taught with the same methods in different environments. I personally experienced many times that even the absence of one individual in my classes affected the teaching an learning processes in a negative or positive way depending upon the classroom dinamics.

I am curious about what you think on this. Do you agree?

While reading I felt that the author is somewhat close to new ideas coming from other people, other thinkers, actually coming from the rest of the world. I mean as I understood at some parts, he is not open to accept the judgements or theories of some thinkers because what they said were already out there, they did not bring anything new. However I would name these people as men of action and thinkers ahead of their time. Because they draw attention to critical points that were ignored or missed by others. Maybe yes what they put forth were already out there or maybe some of their methods are not sufficient compared to our current methodologies but still they were the ones to see the complete picture and summarize things.

Thank you Evrim Hocam:) I strongly believe in community, wikinomy, we have to share, we can learn from each other in an informal environment but social constructivism is not working on me:) As he wrote "At University I learned almost everything in the quiet of my own room and the library. In corporate life, I relished the opportunity to learn on trains and planes, havens of forced isolation, peace and quiet. To this day I blog a lot and enjoy periods of intense research, reading and writing. It's not that I've learned everything in these contexts, only that they go against the idea that all learning needs to be social." I always got successful with deliberate practice and with "Learning by Doing". I don't like social media as well, there are many damages than benefits and I'm not so introvert, maybe a little:) but it's not about being introvert or extrovert, it's about talking or doing... I want to tell a real story of my friend who was a novice programmer in a company. There were many experts, novices and they were taking courses, online, offline, with collaboration every time. Everybody were sharing, commenting, discussing but he began a real life project first week by himself and after 6 month they were still asking to each other but he finished his project. After one year he was the best programmer in the company. And everyone began to ask to him. I asked him, he told that he believes in working until suffering and just doing:) And he added this interesting sentence "You will learn and you will be successful when you will be so related, so suffering that one day you will see dreams and solve problems about the topics in your sleep" My friend's opinions are maybe a little bit dramatic but I believe in "doing" too, at least it's working for us:)

This is a nice little newsletter that mentions some characteristics of situated learning. Some resources on situated learning and its usage in learning environments are offered !

Firstly, it was a nice source to read, thanks for sharing it. I agree with you time concerns, teacher and student charateristics are prominent to implement the principles of situated learning in practice. It is really difficult to create authentic learning environment in our classes under the stess of keeping up with the curriculum which is based on traditional theories of learning. Thus, it is the work of the curriculum specialists to revise the curricula to be more in line with the improvements in the field of learning sciences.

There is a case study which I really advise you to look at it. It is about a political course in which they took a government's problem about content and design of websites. He says "given all the considerations at work in municipal government, the students will decide how the power of the web can best be brought to bear on making government work better."