A somewhat exasperated rejoinder to Greeno, J. G. (1997). On Claims That Answer the Wrong Questions. Educational Researcher, 26(1), 5–17 on criticism of Situated learning.
The most persuasive argument here is that this is not merely a philosophical argument. Cognitivism developed in response to Behaviorism’s concrete failures to model complex human competence. By developing “an understanding of the mental processes of learning”, cognitivism has demonstrated concrete ways to make progress in the problems of learning. Situated learning advocates don’t seem to be engaged in the same project of developing these kind of modeling and prediction tools—in fact in many cases they actively oppose these kinds of formalisms—and so, on wonders: how exactly does it propose to make progress?
They make another key point: Situated learning insists that meaning comes from social participation in communities of practice. But:
Anyone who has explored the structure of a beautiful flower or of a coral reef knows that learning about something can have a joy quite independent of any social structure, instruction, interpersonal interaction, or group participation.
I think this is right. The situative perspective is quite valuable, on the margin in a schooling-obsessed world, but the claims are too strong.