Annotate the scenario using ideas from situated cognition/situated learning.   Create a two-page report following Jenn’s instructions.  Refer to the scenario to illustrate your answers

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Scenario: Situated cognition/situated learning. Kelly, EDEP 550

You are in high school. Your science teacher is actually the English teacher since the school cannot afford a credentialed science teacher.

The three lessons on electricity have just ended. The lessons involved the English teacher reading chapters from a textbook on electricity. The text covered a simple electricity circuit, use of Ohm’s law, and superficial treatments of electromagnetism. Nothing was covered in the lessons about the dangers of electricity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_injury.

The teacher announces: “That’s all you need to know about electricity. If you answer the 3 multiple-choice questions on this quiz, you will get an A grade.”

You answer the 3 questions easily, get your A grade, and run home.

Jenn, your older sister who knows about electricity, has told everyone to stay away from one of the electrical sockets in your house, which she plans to fix this evening. You can’t wait to beat her to it.

What else do you need to know? You got an A! To be extra sure, you find this image on the web.

At home, you cannot locate a screwdriver, so you take a butter knife from the kitchen drawer. You go to the socket and start up unscrew the screw holding the faceplate:

You can now see the outlet (in the wiring image above, left).

“How hard can it be?” you ask as you tried to pry out the outlet with the knife.

“STOP!” your older sister, Jenn, yells. She has been working as an electrician for five years.

“Are you CRAZY?”

You hold up the butter knife: “So far, so good!” you say confidently.

“Get away from that outlet. Come over to the table and sit down!”

You retort: “Hey! I got an A in electricity!”

She sighs. “Sit! Watch, listen and learn.”

Your younger sister, Belle, joins you both at the table: “Can I watch, listen and learn, too?”

You reply: “Oh, please! What does Belle know? Did she take my class? No! Did she get an A! No! She just roams around the house getting her nose into other people’s business.”

Jenn replies: “You are more dangerous than Belle. She knows she knows nothing about electricity and leaves it alone. You have learned a few facts and have false confidence.

You know nothing about what it means to be an electrician: a deep knowledge of electricity, what safety training you need, what tools we use and why, what practices we follow. what rules we follow. For example, that you need the humility to ask for help from someone who knows more than you.”

You are silent and sullen. Didn’t I get an A? Doesn’t the A mean I am the best, that I know what I need to know?”

Jenn says, “What was in the textbook? How hard was the test?” After up explain, she replies, “Knowing a few facts about electricity circuits or electromagnetism does not make you an electrician. Let’s start with the butter knife.”

You answer: “Pretty smart, right? It works, and it’s right there in the drawer. AND, it saves money on buying a screwdriver. They are the same: they are both things .”

Jenn replies: “Did you textbook cover electrical insulation and conduction?”

You reply: “I know it didn’t, because I got an A!”

She places an insulated screwdriver beside the butter knife on the table:

[footnoteRef:1] [footnoteRef:2] [1: https://www.banggood.com/1000W-High-Voltage-Insulated-Screwdriver-Slotted-Screwdriver-Phillips-Screwdrivers-p-1414093.html?cur_warehouse=CN&ID=565650] [2: https://www.wayfair.com/kitchen-tabletop/pdp/oneida-hospitality-chefs-table-butter-knife-pbtb1370.html]

“What do you notice,” Jenn asks.

Belle replies: “They are different colors!”

“Yes,” Jenn replies: “Pick them up. What else do you notice?”

Frustrated, you say: “Just tell her that the screwdriver is cooler and more expensive.”

Belle says: “Hmm. The screwdriver is covered in rubber with just a metal tip, and the knife is just all metal.”

Jenn replies: “Very good! This tool is called an insulated screwdriver. It has a rubber coating that protects against electric shock by acting as an insulator!”

You: “An ‘electric shock’? Belle is just a kid. Just call tell her it word hurt.”

Jenn: “No, technical terms really matter.”

Belle continues: “AND, both the insulated screwdriver and the butter knife are dry, which is great, right?”

Jenn invites more input, “What do you mean?”

“Well, when the basement flooded, Dad told everyone to stay away because water and electricity can hurt you.”

“Yes,” said Jenn, “water can act as a conductor. When you are working with electricity, you want the area to be dry, your tools dry, and your hands dry.”

More sullen, you retort: “She just learned that by listening to Dad. It wouldn’t count for school!”

Jenn reaches into her work bag: “In fact,” Jenn says, “I always bring another tool along, called a voltage tester.” And showed us.

[footnoteRef:3] [3: https://www.creativesafetysupply.com/voltage-tester/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhebM-I_18wIVFaGzCh1ZngC0EAkYAiABEgIAufD_BwE]

“It has no flat top. Pretty lame for a screwdriver!,” you retort.

Jenn sighs. “The voltage tester is a different kind of tool than a screwdriver. It has a different function. That’s one of the important things you learn when you are becoming an electrician. Different tools for different functions. Always first decide what function you want to address, then pick the appropriate tool.”

Belle asks, “What does this tool do?”

Jenn: “It alerts you if any of the wires you are working with are live – meaning they could give you a nasty electric shock. Remember the rule: Safety first!”

Belle lists of what she has been learning by listening: “Safety first! Make sure you understand the problem by using the right words! Understand the problem, then pick the right tool! Oh! And always listen to someone who knows more than you; not someone who THINKS he knows more!”

You glare at her. “OK, so let’s use the darn tool.” You grab it from the table.

Jenn stops you: “How do you know it is in working order?”

“What?” you reply, frustrated. “No wonder none of this is in the textbook. So many things to think about! It would take pages and pages! Why would it NOT be working? It has batteries, right?”

Jenn, speaking to you and Belle: “Remember, safety first. How can we know if the voltage tester is working properly?”

You reply: “Put the batteries into another device and see if they works!”

Jenn: “What if the batteries are OK, but the voltage tester is defective?”

“Oh,” you reply, “I didn’t think of that…”

Belle, being snarky: “Of course not, because You got an A!”

Jenn tries to hide a smile.

Jenn: “Let’s all three of us this talk this problem over. How could we check if the voltage tester is working correctly?”

You say: “I’ll go look in a book! Or maybe it’s in Wikipedia?”

Belle, with a look of disdain: “Just look around you, smarty!”

You look around the room: “I don’t see a book!”

Belle: “What do you see?”

You: “Things!”

Belle to Jenn: “He needs to give his A back to the teacher!”

You are now frustrated and refuse to look around the room. You try to remember everything the teacher said in school, but nothing new comes to mind.

Belle with a big smile, to Jenn: “Here’s another rule: Don’t work with electricity when you are angry or tired! You could hurt yourself!”

Belle reflects: “I didn’t get an A in school but I think I am already a better electrician than he is!”

Jenn: “Yes, Belle, you are starting to think and behave like an electrician. But, we are a family and we need to work on this together. We will learn best when we collaborate and share our ideas.”

You explode: “ Think like an electrician’! Was that on the test? No!”

Belle to Jenn: “Keep him away from the socket. He’s so angry he can’t even see what’s in the room.”

You take a deep breath, and calm down.

A little humbled, you turn to Belle. “OK, what do you see?”

Belle” “Well, first we stay away from that socket you were going to work on. There’s something funny about it.”

Jenn, “What do you mean?”

Belle, “It smells like it’s burning inside.”

You: “Really? Smell? There was nothing about a burning smell in our textbook!”

Jenn: “I am so glad you noticed the smell. Yes, I think that there is an electrical short in the outlet. We need to fix it.”

You: “Ah! The textbook did talk about “electrical shorts.” I remember seeing it on the diagram.”

Belle: “Too bad the diagram wasn’t “scratch and sniff![footnoteRef:4]” She laughs. [4: https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/question274.htm]

Jenn: “Yes, sometimes the information you need is only in the workplace, not in a book.”

You: “I need a break.”

Jenn, “That’s wise. Let’s go outside and play catch. I will replace the faceplate cover you removed.”

After 30 minutes, you all return to the kitchen.

You look around the room, slowly. You notice that there is lamp plugged into a different socket. The lamp is lit.

Jenn and Belle are watching you.

“Got it!” you exclaim. “We test the voltage tester with the socket we know is working. If it beeps an alarm, we know it is working!”

Jenn and Belle both smile.

You: “So let’s fix it!”

Belle interjects: “Remember, safety first. It’s dark now, and when we turn off the breaker switch in the basement…”

You: “What’s a breaker switch?”

Belle, “Yes, I watched Dad doing it and asked him to explain it to me. A breaker switch turns off all the sockets in the room.”

[footnoteRef:5] [5: https://www.thespruce.com/circuit-breakers-how-to-reset-a-circuit-breaker-1152756]

You: “So what does that mean?”

Belle: “There is no ceiling light. I looked in Jenn’s bag. She doesn’t have a flashlight. Maybe you can see in the dark?”

Belle to Jenn: “Maybe he’s a bat with echo location!”

Jenn, sighs: “OK. Enough for today. Safety first. See you both in the morning.”

—————————————————————————————————————————–

When Belle is in bed, she asks, “What are you going to do, now?”

You tell Jenn that you are going to write a report to the English teacher about everything you picked up about working with electricity when you got home.

Jenn says, “Good. Using examples, help him understand that earning a grade of an A on a test with three items about abstract knowledge does not equal expertise in the workplace. Point out the difference between domain knowledge about electricity in your textbook, and the domain knowledge about electricity you picked up when we talked the problems through at home. List examples that show the importance of social interaction, of knowledge sharing, knowledge creation, and identity building. Point out to him the importance of tools. And how these tools allow us to extend our hands to accomplish actions, and allow our minds to assess a problem and address it, while keeping us safe. Stress how the situation of the classroom and the situation of our kitchen differ and why this matters. Tell him what rules you picked up that were not in the textbook. Show that using the correct words and labels matter. Finally, tell him what dispositions and emotional states make for a good electrician.

Assignment:

Annotate the scenario using ideas from situated cognition/situated learning. Upload it to the discussion board.

Create a two-page report following Jenn’s instructions. Refer to the scenario to illustrate your answers.

Upload the two-page report with the annotated scenario as an appendix to the correct location on Blackboard.

Let me know if you have any questions.