Situated Cognition

I read about situated cognition today. What exactly is situated cognition?
There are several definitions in the Driscoll’s book and in the internet.

“The theory of situated cognition…claims that every human thought is adapted to the environment, that is, situated, because what people perceive, how they conceive of their activity, and because what they physically do develop together”(Clancey, 1997, pp. 1-2)

"Knowledge is situated in activity, context, and culture of which it is a part...Iearning is inseparable from and not ancillary to the content." (Brown, Collins and Duguid, 1989)

"Learning, thinking, and knowing are relations among people engaged in activity in, with, and arising from the socially and culturally structured world." (Lave, 1991)

These are all about situated cognition from great people in the field.

Human are social animals. We always interact with the environment around us. We used to communicate and convince each other to understand our ideas. By that process, we all learn lot from each other. This process is a real method of learning and is a continuous process if the learner is a part of the society. The knowledge we acquired is the result of the process by interacting with the situations. To get this type of knowledge we necessarily be situated in a society or environment.

According to Driscoll (p. 158), the situated cognition theory considers the individual’s socio-culture setting and the activities within that setting. Any theory of learning must start with the culture in which the learner resides.

For a child his home is the first school and his family is the first teachers. From birth, the child started to learn form the home, the very first socio-culture center. The child will be learning lot from the parents and other family members. Therefore, as a parent I need to be careful to give the right behaviors to the children.

As a child, I used to play with other children in my community. That was my first social circle out side my home. I got so many friends. We used to share information’s in our circle, another learning event.

A Child’s basic character molded happens mainly at his/her home. The child learns from the instructions given by parents. They learn to accept or reject certain things. They learn to like or dislike some items. They learn to believe and love somebody or some concepts. They learn to fear or not to fear some thing. All these are very much depending on the socio-cultural settings.

The everyday situation a person faces is another venue of learning. Knowledge acquired is situational and transfers only to similar situations.

I am thinking about a Basketball player and Basketball fan. A Basketball player and the fan can go for the same game, but they can experience it differently. A player plays the game, lives and communicates with other players, and participates in all the events of the game. On the other hand, a fan usually enjoys the game by observing the activities of the players and other fans inside the venue. The Basket ball player exemplifies the situated cognition theory of learning.”

Reference: Driscoll, M (2005). Psychology of Learning For Instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.