Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger)

When to use Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger)

Professional and on-the-job learning, onboarding, and programmes meant to build a practice or community rather than teach isolated knowledge.

How Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger) works

Activities use real-world scenarios and authentic tasks that mirror actual practice contexts.

Phases of Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger)

1. Authentic Context: Set learning in the real or realistic setting where the knowledge is used: real cases, real tools, real problems.
2. Legitimate Activity: Give newcomers genuine but manageable tasks that contribute to real work, starting at the periphery rather than with abstract exercises.
3. Social Participation: Let learners work alongside experienced practitioners and peers, learning from observation, conversation and shared work.
4. Identity Development: Make space for people to see themselves as members of the practice, for example by reflecting on how their role and confidence are changing.

Key principles

• Learning is situated in context
• Legitimate peripheral participation
• Communities of practice
• Learning changes identity

Best for

• Onboarding and apprenticeships
• Professional communities of practice
• Work-based learning
• Peer learning networks

Considerations

• Lave and Wenger stress that legitimate peripheral participation is an analytical view of learning, not a teaching technique; the phases here are a practical translation.
• Hard to recreate authentic practice fully in a workshop room.
• Communities of practice can also reproduce exclusion and outdated habits.

Attribution & sources

Developed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, 1991

Primary source

Design a session with Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger)

METODIC builds a complete Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger)-based session — methods, timing, worksheets, and facilitator guides — in minutes.

Try METODIC free