Legitimate peripheral participation: the book and the idea
Download MP3"Legitimate peripheral participation" is based on observations about how novices learn in the presence of experts. The novel bits are that novices learn better from fellow novices than from experts, that we need to pay attention to the difference between teaching and learning, that passive observation is underrated, and that toy projects (code katas, "advent of code", etc.) are perhaps not all that useful – at least to novices.
In the "applications" section of the episode, I offer an off-kilter suggestion about pair programming.
Jean Lave and Étienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, 1991. Note: I'd say this is the least readable of the books I've covered so far, especially if you're allergic to jargon-heavy academic social science. On the plus side, it's only 123 pages (excluding bibliography and index).
Étienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, 1998
"I sure as hell am not going to share my knowledge here for free!"
Edwin Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild, 1996
Credits
The episode image is "Apprentice" by Louis Emile Adan (1839-1937), circa 1914, original copyrighted by Braun&Co., N.Y., but copyright not renewed. This image is available from the United States Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons.
Étienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, 1998
"I sure as hell am not going to share my knowledge here for free!"
Edwin Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild, 1996
Credits
The episode image is "Apprentice" by Louis Emile Adan (1839-1937), circa 1914, original copyrighted by Braun&Co., N.Y., but copyright not renewed. This image is available from the United States Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons.
