Everyday Cognition and Situated Learning

Everyday cognition and situated learning investigates learning as an essentially social phenomena that takes place at the juncture of everyday interactions. These learning interactions are generated by the social relations, cultural history, and particular artifacts and physical dimensions of the learning environment. Brent Wilson and Karen Myers (2000) point out that there are distinct advantages in taking this approach. Taking a situated learning viewpoint promises a broader perspective for research and practice in instructional design. The diversity of disciplines that are interested in a social or practice learning point of view include linguistics, anthropology, political science, and critical theory among others allow researchers and practitioners to look beyond psychology-based learning theories. In this chapter, I would like to take a broader look then is normally done some of the researchers that are engaged in exploring learning and local sense making from a situated perspective. The intent of this chapter is to provide a taste of some of the rich work being done in this field in the hopes that readers may explore ideas and authors in further detail in order to provide new avenues for investigation and to more critically examine learning, teaching, and instructional design from a practice-based approach. The term “practice” is defined as the routine, everyday activities of a group of people who share a common interpretive community.