Focus
Agents incorporating physical and social worlds in extended cognitive systemsPrincipal Metaphors
- Knowledge is … repertoire of possibilities ((((of an agent) in a social corpus) in the body politic) in the physical world)
- Knowing is … appropriate acting
- Learner is … individual-with-tools-for-thinking
- Learning is … expanding/elaborating possibilities (in part through extending into and engaging with social and material resources available in one’s environment)
- Teaching is … co-participating in learning
Originated
1980sSynopsis
Distributed Cognition is a framework for studying the ways that humans use social and technological means to off-load some of their thinking. It is evident is something as simple as writing out a shopping list. In this frame, “cognition” is understood to extend across members of a social group and to be invested in physical artefacts and environments. That is, the social and material worlds that humans structure around themselves – comprising relationships, symbol systems, tools, and so on – are not just the products of their cognition; they are aspects of their cognition.Commentary
Distributed Cognition has been subject to surprisingly few criticisms. The most common ones tend to be launched from critics lodged in Folk Theories who cannot interrupt a naïve conviction that cognition is brain-based and bounded by the skin, much less that cognition might involve other cognitive systems.Authors and/or Prominent Influences
L.S. VygotskyStatus as a Theory of Learning
Distributed Cognition is a theory of learning.Status as a Theory of Teaching
Distributed Cognition is not a theory of teaching, but it is does serve as a powerful and useful interruption of many troublesome assumptions and practices that are rooted in the belief that cognition happens entirely in the head. The disruptive realization that technologies are a component of cognition prompts attentions to the sorts of vocabularies and artefacts that should be made available to enable possibility – as opposed to, for example, the sorts and extents of rote practice that will lodge necessary understandings in the agent’s head.Status as a Scientific Theory
Distributed Cognition can be appropriately described a scientific means of studying the complex and situated dynamics of learning. It is supported by methodologically robust research and has a substantial evidence base.Map Location
Please cite this article as:
Davis, B., & Francis, K. (2019). “Distributed Cognition” in Discourses on Learning in Education. https://learningdiscourses.com.
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