Emerging Innovative Teacher Education from Situated Cognition in a Web-based Environment

In this paper, the authors first discuss the main rationales of situated cognition and its connections with innovation in teacher education. The challenges that might occur in applying situated cognition in teacher education programs, including insufficient opportunities for cognition apprenticeship, limited social interactions, and constraints in microteaching, are then presented. Correspondingly, this paper suggests three principles—enhancing peripheral participation, strengthening cognitive apprenticeship, and forming special interest groups online—in order to integrate situated cognition with a Web-based environment as a way to overcome the defects of conventional teacher education programs. Further, a recent application trial is described as a demonstration of how to innovate teacher education using a Web-based environment. Finally, a group of pre-service teachers participated in the research, and their perceived usefulness of the Web-based environment were measured and discussed. The results substantiate the applicable principles to establish a Web-based environment to support the course in teacher education. These outcomes are believed to contribute to both teacher education and educational technologies in the contemporary milieu of education.