Context is something, I think, that we don’t think enough about. It plays a fundamental role in our cognition, and so, too, our learning. It also, then, plays a role in our use of technology. Which means we should be thinking about context in context.
So, I’ve talked before about how context matters. Our current models of cognition suggest that we’re not the logical reasoning engines that we used to believe we were. That is, our interpretation of the situation we’re facing is a complex interaction between our previous knowledge and our current situation. We can, in fact, completely miss something, because we’re assuming it’s a situation we’ve seen before. (I’m guilty of this, for instance!) Similarly, we can be completely flummoxed by a situation we should be familiar with, because something about the context has led us to mis-categorize the situation.
Which implies, strongly, that making sure we’re seeing the right contexts across examples and practice is important in designing learning experiences. And that we should facilitate reflection to help learners recognize how things transfer. We can’t assume that folks will transfer what we’ve presented to appropriate situations, we need to engineer it!
This applies to technology, too. We can’t assume that it’s aware of the current context. As I stated in a link above, we can tie technology to a particular context. Or, harder, we can try to make the technology ‘context aware’. That is, have enough appropriate ways of sensing the environment that the system can know what we’re doing, or where we’re looking. Augmented reality, for instance, depends on this.
One other approach, as we’re currently seeing in generative artificial intelligence, e.g. Large Language Models, is to convey the context to the system. This is what a lot of ‘prompt engineering’ is about; getting the system to understand enough of what we are asking to appropriately provide a response. And, that’s not a bad approach. With one caveat; we can be blind to some of the contextual elements. And, until we provide them, the responses we get are less likely to be useful. (And, they’re never 100% trustworthy even then, they’re still probabilistic. We need experts in the loop.)
My point is that we need to be more aware of context than we are. We need to account for it in learning design, in technology use, and more. We should be going as far as what Don Norman suggests (and I’m on board), that our contextual awareness needs to extend to the implications, e.g. environment, society, etc. If we’re taking context in context, we’re more likely to be addressing the immediate, and long-term need, than we are if we don’t. It’s that simple. It’s hard, I know, as I struggle with it too. Still, it’s important. So, shall we?
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