Situated learning

Situated learning is a theory on how individuals acquire professional skills, extending research on apprenticeship into how legitimate peripheral participation leads to membership in a community of practice. Situated learning "takes as its focus the relationship between learning and the social situation in which it occurs".

The perspective can be contrasted with alternative views of learning: "Rather than defining [learning] as the acquisition of propositional knowledge, Lave and Wenger situated learning in certain forms of social co-participation. Rather than asking what kinds of cognitive processes and conceptual structures are involved, they ask what kinds of social engagements provide the proper context for learning to take place".

Situated learning was first proposed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger as a model of learning in a community of practice. At its simplest, situated learning is learning that takes place in the same context in which it is applied. Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that learning should not be viewed as simply the transmission of abstract and decontextualised knowledge from one individual to another, but a social process whereby knowledge is co-constructed; they suggest that such learning is situated in a specific context and embedded within a particular social and physical environment.

Lave and Wenger assert that situated learning "is not an educational form, much less a pedagogical strategy". However, since their writing, others have advocated different pedagogies that include situated activity:

Many of the original examples from Lave and Wenger concerned adult learners, and situated learning still has a particular resonance for adult education. For example, Hansman shows how adult learners discover, shape, and make explicit their own knowledge through situated learning within a community of practice.

In the 2003 article "The Nature of Situated Learning", Paula Vincini argued that "the theory behind situated learning or situated cognition arises from the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, and cognitive science." She summarized:

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