Principle — Context

Learning is facilitated by practice that is the same as, or accurately represents, the context of performance. Context is defined by the features of a situation, including the total surroundings and properties of objects. Varied practicepromotes generalization and independence of association or performance from only onespecific context.

Theory Group / Local Principles
Behavioral / Aristotle:
Law of contiguity (things experienced together become associated)
Thorndike:
Features of a situation
Assimilation: analogous elements between stimulus situations Bonds contracted with the total situation
Pavlov:
All surroundings and properties of objects come to stimulate an anticipatory salivary reflex
Watson:
Break down in habit with change of conditions (e.g., removal to another room)
Skinner:
The law of the discrimination of the stimulus in type R
Hull:
Functional dynamics of compound conditioned stimuli
Guthrie:
Practice is necessary to the extent that the response must be elicitable from a variety of situations
Estes:
Effective sample of stimulus elements on a given learning trial
Cognitive / Ebbinghaus:
Mental states are brought about through the instrumentality of other, immediately present mental images
Tolman:
Active selection of significant stimuli
Use of contextual cues to navigate a modified maze
Kohler:
Situational value of a tool
Cognitive Information Processing:
Effect of context on pattern recognition
Probability of later recall depends on the similarity of context during initial learning
and the context during later recall
Vocabulary best learned in context
Positive transfer is difficult to achieve because learning is situated
Advanced knowledge acquisition requires revisiting the same material at different
times, in rearranged contexts, for different purposes, and from different conceptual perspectives
Ausubel:
The defining attributes of a concept are learned most readily when the concept is encountered in a large number of different contexts
Multicontextual learning facilitates the abstraction of commonality and strengthens the generality and transferability a concept
Balance between heterogeneity and consolidation
Transferability depends on application of a principle to as many specific contexts as
possible during learning
Learning is enhanced when the conditions of practice closely resemble the
conductions under which the skill or knowledge will be used
Schema Theory:
Some information in memory is particular to the situation it represents, other information is more general
Particular information is encoded with constant values substitute for variables of a general scheme
Variables in a schema are constrained Default variable values
Constructive / General:
Environmental factors, culture, technology, and instructional practices
One way of creating student-centered learning environments is by presenting content in several contexts
Real-world context (accepting complexity)
Learning free of artificial context
Prior experience and context affect how we encode memories
Piaget:
Generalizing assimilation
Contact with the environment is necessary for the preservation, development, and
coordination of reflexes
Utilization of external objects in the development of the reflexes
Signals developed through physical and visual contact with objects in the
Environment
Bruner:
Child's manipulable model of the environment and going beyond the information present
Structure of a subject
Language provides a release from immediacy Recurrent features of complex environments
Human / Attribution Theory:
Otherwise impossible interpretation becomes possible through additional data
The world outside the person
Self-Efficacy:
Independent mastery in varied context promotes authentic personal efficacy
Social / Vygotsky:
Cultural improvement of psychological functions
Solving inner problems by means of exterior objects
The organism masters the means of cultural behavior supplied by the environment Cultural mnemonics (the ABX triangle)
Development is conditioned by outward influences
The psychogenesis of cultural forms of behavior
Human beings are created by the society in which they live and it represents the determining factor in the formation of their personalities
Situational constraints of the young child
Freedom from external things through learning to act in the cognitive realm Use of tools
The child produces relations with the environment through speech and tool use Role of object and social environment in development
Bandura:
Environmental influences on behavior
Symbolic environment created by media (e.g., video games, TV, etc.) Judgments of conduct influenced, in part, by context
Situated learning:
Legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice Systems of relations
Activity theory:
Every day, real-world context
Cognitive apprenticeship:
Reliance on classroom v. authentic context features Off-loading part of the cognitive task to the environment Learner's reliance on whatever context is available "Indexicalized" representations
Context-dependent nature of learning
Social context of learning
Situated environment reflects multiple uses of knowledge being learned Students understand the purposes or uses of knowledge being learned Active use of knowledge while learning
Students learn conditions of application
Abstraction of knowledge through multiple contexts