Reply to Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M., & Simon, H. A. (1996). Situated Learning and Education. Educational Researcher, 25(4), 5–11 in defense of Situated learning.
He accuses Anderson et al of misunderstanding situated learning’s claims, so that their criticisms don’t really apply. The differences are hard for me to understand (ditto for JRA et al; see their reply), excepting the observation that situationalists take the basic concept of analysis to be interactive systems, rather than units of knowledge within the individual. It’s not clear how exactly that difference plays out with respect to the parties’ claims. Greeno acknowledges that transfer does exist; that abstract knowledge exists; that starting with systematic tasks will slow learning; that school learning is possible; etc. He emphasizes some of the differences in terms of meaning, but doesn’t lean on them as hard as I would if I were replying to JRA et al.
Overall, I take Greeno’s complaints to mainly indicate that the situative perspective has a different frame, asks questions from a different angle. That’s valuable! But I think these two are talking past each other. JRA has real criticisms of the excesses of situatitive advocates; Greeno doesn’t really rebut them. And I think JRA et al underacknowledge teleology, meaning, identity, etc, but that’s not really Greeno’s emphasis here.
See reply from Anderson et al: Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M., & Simon, H. A. (1997). Situative Versus Cognitive Perspectives: Form Versus Substance. Educational Researcher, 26(1), 18–21