Situated Learning: An Inductive Case Study of a Collaborative Learning Experience

Some vocational teacher educators are beginning to reconsider the assumptions that underlie their graduate-level teaching. A particular concern is that learners often cannot adequately apply their acquired theoretical knowledge when solving complex problems in their professional lives (Schell & Rojewski, 1995). While searching for an instructional approach that encourages inquiry and active use of information, some have found that the view of the “professor as a dispenser of knowledge” is too confining and potentially exclusionary to some learners. Lave and Wenger (1991) have stated:

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