Newcomers learn a community's practice by taking part in its real but low-stakes work at the edge, moving towards the centre as their skill and standing grow.
Lave and Wenger's 1991 book Situated Learning drew on studies of apprenticeship among Yucatec midwives, Vai and Gola tailors in Liberia, US Navy quartermasters, supermarket butchers and non-drinking alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous. In each, they argued, newcomers learned less by being taught than by taking part in tasks the community really needed, in positions where mistakes were cheap and old-timers were at hand. They presented it as an analytical viewpoint on learning rather than a teaching method.
In practice
- A new editor on a wiki fixes typos and formats citations for months before rewriting an article.
- A junior engineer reviews other people's code and fixes small bugs before owning a feature.
- Possible explanations
- The claim is that learning is a change in a person's participation in a community, so skill and membership grow together. Peripheral tasks are real, which makes the participation legitimate, and low in risk, which makes it learnable. Online it supports the view that lurking can be a form of learning.
- In its favour
- Preece, Nonnecke and Andrews's 2004 survey of lurkers in online communities found that many said reading was enough for them, and some wanted to get to know the group before taking part.
- Against it
- It is an analytical lens rather than a testable account of teaching. Fuller and colleagues argued in 2005, from studies of workplace learning, that the model underrates explicit instruction and formal qualifications and that some learners are kept at the periphery rather than being drawn inwards.
- Standing
- The research behind lurk moar, Rule 33 of the Rules of the Internet. Compare the 90-9-1 Rule and the Zone of Proximal Development.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- Theories of teaching, and what schools are for