Imagineering inauthentic legitimate peripheral participation: an instructional design approach for motivating computing education

Since its publication, Lave and Wenger's concept of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) [18] has become an important concept for understanding situated learning. LPP states that learning only occurs when students perceive that what's being taught is aligned with their goals (in LPP terms, with the students' perceived community of practice). This has implications for our traditional CS courses (e.g., are we teaching what the students perceive as being relevant for their future careers?), but even greater implications for courses for non-CS majors. When computer science educators are asked to teach non-CS majors, we are often placed in the position of teaching in alignment with a community of practice that does not, or does not yet, exist. In that sense, our teaching is inauthentic---not aligned with a community of practice. However, there is the possibility that we can generate a perception of authenticity or alignment. We use the example of two classes at Georgia Tech that seem successful by several measures, yet suffer this inauthenticity. We propose that a useful tool for understanding how these classes work is the Disney Corporation's Imagineering---their process of story-telling in three-dimensions as used in their theme parks. However, in the end, we find that what students actually learn is not necessarily the story that we are telling them, which points toward future research.