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SITUATED LEARNING THEORY
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Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 98–106Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Teaching and Teacher Education
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate
Situated learning theory and the pedagogy of teacher education: Towards
an integrative view of teacher behavior and teacher learning
Fred A.J. Korthagen*
CETAR, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Lave and Wenger have greatly influenced existing views of learning and teaching, but relatively little has
Received 27 November 2008 been written about the implications for the understanding of teacher behavior and teacher learning, and
Received in revised form for the pedagogy of teacher education. Based on their work, a three-level model of learning is used to
23 April 2009
analyze the friction between teacher behavior in practice and the wish to ground teachers’ practices in
Accepted 5 May 2009
theory. Supported by empirical data on teacher learning and brain research, this model reconciles the
situated learning perspective with traditional cognitive theory, and leads to concrete implications for the
Keywords:
pedagogy of teacher education.
Teacher education
Teacher behavior Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Teacher learning
Professional development
Situated learning
Transfer of knowledge
1. Introduction and Tabachnik (1981) noted that the effects of university teacher
education were being ‘‘washed out’’ by school experiences. In the
In their thought-provoking book, Lave and Wenger (1991) same period, the ‘practice shock’ phenomenon started to draw
introduced a specific view of learning, and new concepts such as international attention, and many researchers from various coun-
legitimate peripheral participation, and situated learning. Their tries demonstrated that teacher education graduates were facing
work has influenced many teacher educators and researchers, and severe problems trying to survive in the classroom, and were
as a logical consequence, it has opened up new perspectives on implementing little of what they had learnt during their profes-
teaching. Hence, it is remarkable that their consequences for sional preparation. For example, in a large-scale German study,
teaching and teacher education have hardly been fully analyzed in Müller-Fohrbrodt, Cloetta, and Dann (1978) showed that novice
this journal, even though in several educational fields, for example teachers changed rapidly from an idealistic attitude towards
e-learning, much progress has been made using analyses from a more custodial one. In a teacher education program at Linköping
a situated learning perspective (see e.g. Ponti, Lindström, Dirckinck- University, Bergqvist (2000) studied student teachers and their
Holmfeld, & Moeller Svendsen, 2004). tutors, and found that, contrary to the curriculum goals, many
The aim of the present article is to go straight to the heart of the student teachers had indeed acquired the techniques of carrying
question of what the Lave and Wenger perspective could mean to out a small scientific study, e.g. they had learnt how to find relevant
teacher educators’ and researchers’ understanding of teacher literature, but they had not developed the critical scholarly attitude
behavior and teacher learning, and to the pedagogy used in teacher their program had aimed at.
education. Although this perspective was published more than 15 Although initially many studies on the practice shock and the
years ago already, today this question seems more urgent than ever. problems related to the induction into teaching were carried out from
The reason is that, as Grossman (2008) argues, we are currently a somewhat local or national perspective, an extensive meta-study by
facing a crisis in teacher education, given the many research studies Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon (1998) led to the more general
showing the disappointing impact of teacher education on teacher conclusion that the impact of teacher education on practice tends to be
behavior and teacher learning. Already in the early 1980s, Zeichner minimal. In a review of North-American research on teacher education,
the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education (Cochran-Smith &
* Takstraat 14, 3572 HZ Utrecht, The Netherlands. Tel.: þ31 30 2710692; fax: þ31 Zeichner, 2005) came to the conclusion there is no convincing evidence
20 6183225. that teacher education really makes a difference. However, there are
E-mail address: f.korthagen@uu.nl
0742-051X/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tate.2009.05.001
, F.A.J. Korthagen / Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 98–106 99
also other contrasting studies showing that teacher education based on relations with each other and with the world accordingly. In
specific pedagogies does have the potential to influence the practices of other words we learn.’’ (p. 45).
teachers (e.g. Brouwer & Korthagen, 2005; Day,1999). It means that the
If we take Wenger’s quote seriously, it tells us that the learning
picture may well be less negative than some researchers suggest.
processes taking place in student teachers is fundamentally different
Nevertheless, we can conclude that to date there are at least some
from those that many teacher educators seem to assume. Student
serious doubts about the effectiveness of teacher education in general.
teacher learning does not simply result from teaching them valuable
This means that, although at some institutions teacher education may
educational theories, and does not result from the serial learning of
be successful, new and promising views of learning and teaching may
concepts on a scale of growing complexity (Arnseth & Säljö, 2007;
still insufficiently reach the schools. Many scholars have framed
Derry, 2008). From an anthropological perspective, as proposed by
this problem in terms of a divide between theory and practice (e.g.
Lave, we should view student teacher learning as being part of the
Broekkamp & Van Hout-Wolters, 2007; Burkhardt & Schoenfeld, 2003;
process of participation in social practice, especially the social practice
Kennedy, 1997; Robinson, 1998).
in the schools. As Marton (1996) puts it, with a wink to Descartes:
‘‘I experience, therefore I exist’’ From the Lave and Wenger perspec-
tive, we could say: ‘‘I experience, therefore I learn.’’ If we contrast this
2. Views of knowledge view with the traditional cognitive perspective, it implies nothing less
than a paradigm shift, as DeCorte, Greer, and Verschaffel (1996) see it.
Several researchers have pointed to the underlying causes of the Cobb and Bowers (1999) describe it as a radical move away from the
theory-practice divide. One important reason may be that for quite idea that learning ‘‘entails the transportation of an [knowledge] item
some time there has been a simplistic view of what goes on in from one physical location to the other’’.
teachers and teaching, caused by the fact that researchers often Isn’t this somewhat confusing, though? Many of us have
looked at teachers and schools from the outside, and not from what frequently had the experience of learning a lot from an inspiring
Anderson and Herr (1999) call an insider perspective, as is common teacher or teacher educator, whose lectures on theory opened our
in anthropological research. Those researchers who really went into eyes, who helped us understand phenomena not understood before,
classrooms, and used qualitative approaches with the ‘‘purpose to or at least not so deeply. We may even remember a specific book that
obtain a description of the life world of the interviewee with respect strongly boosted our own learning and changed our worldviews.
to interpreting the meaning of the described phenomena’’ (Kvale, How can we reconcile such experiences with the notions of situated
1996, p. 5), discovered that much of what was going on inside learning and communities of practice? As Putnam and Borko (1997,
schools looked different from what university researchers or p. 1254) say: ‘‘Explaining how transfer to new contexts does occur is
teacher educators would expect (see e.g. Bullough, 1989; Day, 1999). an unresolved issue for proponents of a situated view of cognition.’’
When going a step further than merely interviewing teachers about Summing up, we seem to be faced with an intriguing and
their work – with its inherent problem of reconstructing the process unsolved theoretical question, namely how the situated learning
of meaning making from the perspective of the interviewees perspective and the perspective of traditional cognitive theory can
(cf. Kvale, 1996) – and taking a more anthropological stance in their be reconciled. The objective of this article is to offer some building
research, this promoted a more profound understanding of teaching blocks towards answering this question, as well as the more prac-
from the perspective of what Chaikin and Lave (1996, p. 378) call tical question what such an integrated perspective could mean to
‘‘societally significant practices’’. For example, contrary to what the pedagogy of teacher education.
many teacher educators had hoped, much of the learning taking
place in student teachers appeared to have the characteristics of 3. An integrative perspective
apprenticeship learning, and looked quite similar to what Lave saw
happening in novices entering a community of Liberian tailors (Lave Cobb and Bowers (1999) argue that the different metaphors
& Kvale, 1995), namely a subtle process of enculturation, shaped by underlying situated learning and cognitive theory are incompatible.
language and implicit norms. In an ethnographic study, Beach However, it is important to realize that they are incompatible in so
(1995) demonstrated that political, economic, cultural and ideo- far as they serve different functions. Situated learning theory tries
logical factors play an important role in this process. In summary, to explain the role of embodied social learning, while cognitive
observation of the reality of teaching as embedded in a societal and theory aims at describing the characteristics of knowledge and
historical system (Chaikin & Lave, 1996, p. 18), opened up new ways knowledge development per se. Similar to a position defended by
of looking at teaching, and as a consequence, at teacher education. Bereiter (1997); Korthagen and Lagerwerf (1996) suggested that it
This line of research has revealed differences between the nature is possible to integrate these two perspectives. They did so using
of the knowledge existing in the minds of teachers that really helps a three-level model, which contributes to a better understanding of
them to act effectively, and the knowledge as it is taught in teacher the relationship between theory and practice (see also Hoekstra,
education (see e.g. Fenstermacher, 1994; Kessels & Korthagen, 1996; Beijaard, Brekelmans, & Korthagen, 2007). Their perspective can be
Wubbels, 1992). Seen from the Lave and Wenger perspective, one explained by using a metaphor described by Schön (1993) in rela-
could say that – even though everybody is currently talking about tion to the well-known figure shown in Fig. 1:
situated learning – many teacher educators seem to forget that
‘‘The gestalt figures are used ordinarily to show how ‘‘the same
educational knowledge cannot be simply ‘transmitted’ to teachers,
figure’’ may be seen in very different, incompatible ways. For
and thus improve their actions. Lave and Wenger would argue that
example, in the well-known figure shown here some people see
the opposite is true: learning emerges from our own actions in
two profiles, others the vase. Usually, one can manage (after
relation to those of others. Thus, the learning outcomes are socially
learning what is there to be seen) to move rapidly from one way
constructed (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 95). Wenger (1998) states:
of seeing the figure to the other. It is unusual to find someone
‘‘Being alive as human beings means that we are constantly who claims to be able to see both at once. Yet this, too, can be
engaged in the pursuit of enterprises of all kinds, from ensuring managed if one thinks of the figures as two profiles pressing
our physical survival to seeking the most lofty pleasures. As we their noses into a vase! It is this integrating image which makes
define these enterprises and engage in their pursuit together, it possible to bring together the two different ways of seeing the
we interact with each other and with the world and we tune our figure.’’ (p. 163).
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