Communities of Practice and Situated Learning

We tend to generalize and make presumptions about where learning takes place.  Our automatic response tends to be "learning happens in school, duh."  In addition we presume that the learner is the student and the teacher is doing the teaching.  But is this always the case?  In his article, Wenger addresses this and crosses the quote on quote normal boundaries of where and who in regards to learning.  He shares, "People usually think of apprenticeship as a relationship between a student and a master, but studies of apprenticeship reveal a more complex set of social relationships through which learning takes place mostly with journeymen and more advanced apprentices. The term community of practice was coined to refer to the community that acts as a living curriculum for the apprentice."  This is what learning should be.  Learning is between all people and happens everywhere, or at least it should be.  We should be able to learn from professors, family members, political figures, our neighbors, random people we meet, and even the little girl down the street.  We can learn in the classroom, on the playground, while watching television, and when standing in line at the grocery store.  Learning is a reciprocal and exponential process that should not be taken for granted. 

How funny.  I am currently reading the inFed article while writing this post, and it shares my thoughts that I have previously stated above while reading the first article.  This article states, "in some groups we are core members, in others we are more at the margins."  It is refreshing to think that we are all part of communities whether large or small, and within these communities, we are all learners.  The extent of our learning and participation varies, but it does happen.  They continue to share that learning is a social process and occurs within relationships.  Learning is not something that happens individually.  I am still not sure as to where I lie with this.  I do agree about the social aspect, but I do feel there are times when learning takes place on an individual level.  Wouldn't self-actualization or realization be individual?  Or would it not because at some point a community was probably involved?  This article also made a distinction between experiential learning and situated learning.  I think I have just made the presumption that they are the same thing, but according to Lave and Wenger, they are not.  I probably need to do a little more reading for some clarification on this.  I feel that there may be a very thin line that separates these two types of learning.  I feel as though there is the potential for experiences or situations to cross over and/or play both fields.  Now, I am probably over thinking it and confusing myself.  

 From what I gather both Wegner and Lave favor informal learning.  However, according to Formal and Informal Learning there is still a great need for formal learning.  There is  a 4:1 ration of  informal to formal learning.  Every hour of formal learning equates to four hours of informal learning.  "Formal learning acts as bricks fused into the emerging bridge of personal growth.  Informal learning acts as the motar facilitating the acceptance and development of the formal."  One does not take precedence over the other.  Formal and informal depend on one other.  Therefore we need both in order to learn. 

As educators, its is our responsibility to ensure that we are providing the best learning environments in the formal setting, but also recognize that more learning will also take place informally.  We need to find ways in which we can bridge the gap between the two.  Perhaps intentionally using communities of practice and situated learning in the classroom can be a start.

 

 On another note....

I posted my first tweet.  That was a feat.

I bookmarked sites using diigo and also used diigo to search for articles.

I played around with woordle.  Did not end up with a final product. 

I figured out how to post a link into my blog.