What Do New Views of Knowledge and Thinking Have to Say about Research on Teacher Learning?

The education and research communities are abuzz with new (or at least re-discovered) ideas about the nature of cognition and learning. Terms like "situated cognition," "distributed cognition," and "communities of practice" fill the air. Recent dialogue in Educational Researcher (Anderson, Reder, & Simon, 1996,1997; Greeno, 1997) typifies this discussion. Some have argued that the shifts in world view that these discussions represent are even more fundamental than the now-historical shift from behaviorist to cognitive views of learning (Shuell, 1986). These new ideas about the nature of knowledge, thinking, and learning—which are becoming known as the "situative perspective" (Greeno, 1997; Greeno, Collins, & Resnick, 1996)—are interacting with, and sometimes fueling, current reform movements in education. Most discussions of these ideas and their implications for educational practice have been cast primarily in terms of students. Scholars and policymakers have considered, for example, how to help students develop deep understandings of subject matter, situate students' learning in meaningful contexts, and create learning communities in which teachers and students engage in rich discourse about important ideas (e.g., National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989; National Education Goals Panel, 1991; National Research Council, 1993).