What do we knew views of knowledge and thinking have to say about research on teacher learning?
By Putman and Borko
The education and research communities are abuzz with new (or at least re-discovered) ideas
about the nature of cognition and learning. Terms like "situated cognition," "distributed
cognition," and "communities of practice" fill the air.
Some have argued that the shifts in world view that these discussions represent are even more
fundamental than the now-historical shift from behaviorist to cognitive views of learning.
These new ideas about the nature of knowledge, thinking, and learning—which are becoming
known as the "situative perspective"are interacting with, and sometimes fueling, current reform
movements in education.
Most discussions of these ideas and their implications for educational practice have been cast
primarily in terms of students.
Scholars and policymakers have considered, for example, how to help students develop deep
understandings of subject matter, situate students' learning in meaningful contexts, and create
learning communities in which teachers and students engage in rich discourse about important
ideas.
Less attention has been paid to teachers.
First, we use these ideas about the nature of learning and knowing as lenses for understanding
recent research on teacher learning.
Second, we explore new issues about teacher learning and teacher education that this perspective
brings to light.
We begin with a brief overview of three conceptual themes that are central to the situative
perspective—that cognition is
(a) situated in particular physical and social contexts;
(b) social in nature; and
(c) distributed across the individual, other persons, and tools.
Cognition as Situated
A focus on the situated nature of cognition suggests the importance of authentic
activities-Learning with meaningful contexts in classrooms.
J. S. Brown and colleagues (1989) defined authentic activities as the "ordinary practices
of a culture" (p. 34)—activities that are similar to what actual practitioners do.
Cognition as Social
Dissatisfied with overly individualistic accounts of learning and knowing,-rather it is
social process
Rather, interactions with the people in one's environment are major determinants of both
what is learned and how learning takes place
This sociocentric view (Soltis, 1981) of knowledge and learning holds that what we take
as knowledge and how we think and express ideas are the products of the interactions of
groups of people over time.
Cognition as Distributed
Rather than considering cognition solely as a property of individuals,situative
theorists posit that it is distributed or "stretched over" (Lave, 1988) the individual,
other persons, and various artifacts such as physical and symbolic tools (Salomon,
1993a).Learning and knowing are distributed people,tools and learning
environments.
As well as providing new perspectives on teaching and learning in K-12 classrooms, the situative
approach has important implications for research on the learning of preservice and inservice
teachers.
We focus on three issues: (a) where to situate teachers' learning experiences, (b) the nature of
discourse communities for teaching and teacher learning, and (c) the importance of tools in
teachers' work. (For a more comprehensive discussion of the three themes and their implications
for classroom practices and teacher education, see Putnam & Borko, 1997.)
Where Should Teachers' Learning Be Situated?
According to situative perspective all knowledge is situated. situating learning experiences for
teachers outside of the classroom may be important—indeed essential—for powerful learning.
Learning Experiences for Practicing Teachers
One approach to staff development is to ground teachers' learning experiences in
their own practice by conducting activities at school sites, with a large component
taking place in individual teachers' classrooms.
Another approach is to have teachers bring experiences from their classrooms to
staff development activities, for ex ample through ongoing workshops focused on
instructional practices.
Although settings away from the classroom can provide valuable opportunities for
teachers to learn to think in new ways, the process of integrating ideas and practices
learned outside the classroom into one's ongoing instructional program is rarely
simple or straightforward.
We have described in this section a variety of ways to situate experienced teachers'
learning, ranging from staff developers working alongside teachers in their own
class rooms; to teachers bringing problems, issues, and examples from their
classrooms to group discussions; to summer workshops focused on the teachers' own
learning of subject matter. Research on these projects suggests that the most
appropriate staff development site depends on the specific goals for teachers'
learning. For example, summer workshops appear to be particularly powerful
settings for teachers to develop new relationships to subject matter and new insights
about individual students' learning.
Learning Experiences for Prospective Teachers
Much of the necessary work to guide and support preservice teachers' growing
understandings of literary response can be accomplished in university class settings that
emphasize subject matter knowledge.. . . Still, subject matter knowledge is only a part of
the necessary training for preservice teachers.
Case-Based Learning Experiences for Teachers
Case-based teaching provides another approach for creating meaningful settings for teacher
learning (Doyle, 1990; Leinhardt, 1990; Merseth, 1996; Sykes & Bird, 1992). Rather than putting
teachers in particular classroom settings, cases provide vicarious encounters with those settings.
This experience of the setting may afford reflection and critical analysis that is not possible when
acting in the setting.
cases, provide a shared context for the exploration of pedagogical problems. They can come
much closer, however, to mirroring the complexity of the problem space in which teachers work.
Discourse Communities for Teachers
Teachers and students, are part of discourse communities—social groups that shape how
they think, communicate, and act in their professional roles. These discourse communities play
central roles in shaping the way teachers view their world and go about their work. Therefore,
understanding and reshaping these communities is essential for helping teachers learn and adopt
new ways of teaching.
Discourse Communities for Experienced Teachers
the notion of distributed cognition suggests that when diverse groups of teachers with
different types of knowledge and expertise come together in discourse communities,
community members can draw upon and incorporate each other's expertise to create rich
conversations and new insights into teaching and learning. The existing cultures and
discourse communities in many schools, however, do not value or support critical and
reflective examination of teaching practice. The common view that "each teacher has to find
his or her own style" is a direct result of working within a discourse of practice that maintains
the individualism and isolation of teaching.
Discourse Communities for Preservice Teachers
Traditionally, preservice teacher education programs have focused more on the development of individual
knowledge and competencies thought to be important for teaching than on the establishment of discourse
communities for prospective teachers. Preservice teachers develop knowledge for teaching by
participating in collaborative, reflective, and mentored discourse communities that support their
socialization into the profession and help them bridge theory with classroom [Link] an important
part of learning to teach is becoming enculturated into the teaching community—learning to think, talk,
and act as a teacher.
The Importance of Tools
In the world outside of school, intelligent activities often depend upon resources beyond
the individuals themselves such as physical tools and notational systems (Pea, 1993).
Many of these tools do not merely enhance cognition, they transform it; distributing
cognition across persons and tools expands a system's capacity for innovation and
invention.
This section explains that tools—both physical and symbolic—play a crucial role in
supporting and transforming teachers’ work and learning within the situative
perspective. Most research on the use of technology by teachers, however, has focused on
availability of new technologies, frequency of use, and attitudes toward computers. The
situative perspective provides lenses for examining more thoughtfully the potential of
new technologies for supporting and transforming teachers' work and learning. Salomon
(1993b) made a distinction between performance tools, which enhance or change how a
task is accomplished (e.g., a calculator or a word processor), and pedagogical tools,
which focus primarily on changing the user's competencies.
Conclusion
In this article the authors set out to consider what the situative perspective on cognition
—that knowing and learning are situated in physical and social contexts, social in nature,
and distributed across persons and tool—might offer those of us seeking to understand
and improve teacher learning.
Putnam & Borko (2000) emphasizes that the situative perspective—which views
knowing and learning as situated, social, and distributed—offers powerful new ways to
understand and improve teacher learning.
Can this perspective help us think about teaching and teacher learning more
productively? The Authors believe that the situative perspective can help them to think
about teaching and teacher learning of the language and conceptual tools of social,
situated, and distributed cognition provide powerful lenses for examining teaching,
teacher learning, and the practices of teacher education (both preservice and inservice) in
new ways.
to examine more closely the question of where to situate teachers' learning, were we able
to identify specific advantages and limitations of the various contexts within which
teachers' learning might be meaningfully situated: their own classrooms, group settings
where participants' teaching is the focus of discussion, and settings emphasizing teachers'
learning of subject matter.
The situative perspective is not an argument against transfer, however, but an attempt to
recast the relationship between what people know and the settings in which they know—
between the knower and the known (Greeno, 1997).