Learning Theories and Academic Research Articles

Theorist: Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger

Lave, Jean; Wenger, Etienne (27 September 1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press.

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger push forward the notion of situated learning--that learning is fundamentally a social process and not solely in the learner's head. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation. Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community.

Bresnen, M., Goussevskaia, A., & Swan, J. (2005). Organizational Routines, Situated Learning and Processes of Change in Project-Based Organizations. Project Management Journal, 36(3), 27–41.

This article discusses how project-based organizations implement enterprise-wide change. It reviews the literature on the nature and dynamics of organizational routines, situated learning, and change-in-routines initiatives; it examines four case studies on implementing change in project-based construction organizations.

Hinck, A., & Tighe, J. (2020). From the other side of the desk: students’ discourses of teaching and learning. Communication Education, 69(1), 1–18.

Through interviews and open-ended, online surveys, we trace how nine different discourses of teaching and learning construct knowledge about learning, the role of education, and the norms and values associated with higher education. Ultimately, these discourses reflect ideologies that socialize students into a community of practice that is characterized by dynamic, affective, and personalized pedagogies, relying on the idiosyncrasies of the people involved rather than generic scripts for best practices.