Annotated Bibliography: Designing Classroom Learning using a Situated Approach

This article is widely cited. In the first half of the article, the authors demonstrate the situative nature of learning and the problem with school learning. They argue that knowledge acquisition cannot be separated from doing and that just plain folks solve problems within the contexts and frameworks that created them using the tools that these specific contexts and frameworks provide. Knowledge acquisition is therefore a process of enculturation and as we gain knowledge we constantly change through a process of enrichment. During the second half of the article, two different approaches to mathematics instruction at the university and grade 4 level are analyzed. They advocate teaching knowledge like teaching a tool through an apprenticeship approach. They recommend embedding learning in a familiar activity which allows for legitimacy of the student’s implicit knowledge as well as allowing for collaboratively generated solution paths.