Anchored Instruction and Its Relationship to Situated Cognition

TLDR

Situated cognition, as discussed by Brown, Collins, and Duguid (1989), frames learning around everyday cognition, authentic tasks, and in‑context apprenticeship training. The study investigates how situated cognition relates to the Technology Center’s anchored instruction approach. Anchored instruction is implemented through videodisc‑based, problem‑solving environments that teachers and students can explore. Anchored instruction reproduces apprenticeship advantages in formal group settings and may yield learning experiences more effective than many traditional apprenticeship models, offering new instructional perspectives and research directions.

Abstract

In a recent Educational Researcher article, Brown, Collins, and Duguid (January-February 1989) discussed the concept of situated cognition. We explore relationships between this concept and our Technology Center’s work on anchored instruction. In the latter, instruction is anchored (situated) in videodisc-based, problem-solving environments that teachers and students can explore. We argue that situated cognition provides a broad, useful framework that emphasizes the importance of focusing on everyday cognition, authentic tasks, and the value of in-context apprenticeship training. Anchored instruction provides a way to recreate some of the advantages of apprenticeship training in formal educational settings involving groups of students. In addition, some of the principles of anchored instruction may make it possible to create learning experiences that are more effective than many that occur in traditional apprenticeship training. Together, the situated cognition and anchored instruction perspectives suggest ways to think differently about instruction, and they suggest important issues for future research.