The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt (1992) has also been working on developing a pedagogical approach to situated cognition. They define "anchored instruction" as an attempt to actively engage learners in the learning process by situating instruction in interesting and real-world problem-solving environments. Rather than teaching students how to solve particular problems, these systems teach generalizable skills, helpful across a variety of problem-solving situations. The major goal of this type of instruction is to create authentic-feeling environments in which one can explore and understand problems and opportunities experienced by experts in a domain, and learn about the tools these experts use. This group has developed a series of adventures for middle-school students focusing on math problem formulation and problem solving. These are the "Adventures of Jasper Woodbury" series. The goal of the project is to facilitate broad transfer to other domains, embodying several design principles: (1) video-based presentation, (2) narrative format, (3) generative learning, (4) embedded data design, (5) problem complexity, (6) pairs of related adventures, and (7) links across the curriculum.
One of the major problems with this whole debate over situated cognition versus traditional information processing models is that the former position simply has not tested its underlying hypotheses at this time, while the latter has enjoyed decades of solid research. Vera and Simon (1993), rebutting Clancey's support paper(s) for situated learning, stated, "Clancey leaves us with philosophy (whether correct or not is another matter), but with precious little science." (p. 118). And that appears to be true. Because cognitive psychology is an empirical science, studies need to be conducted that examine claims made by any new position(see 42.5.2). For instance, supporters of our final "hot topic" of the 90's (Virtual Reality, or VR) claim that this new technology can improve learning by virtue of fully immersing the learner in the learning process (learning by saturation). But is there any veracity to this claim? It is certainly testable. The relationship between experience, learning, and pedagogy is a briar patch of thorny questions. Recent theoretical harangues on the nature of situated learning have laid a kind of groundwork for VR by arguing for an epistemology of learning based on experience.