The eight dimensions along which Fenwick compares situated learning with enactivism are: focus, schemata, view of knowledge, relationship of knower to object or situation of knowledge, view of learning process, understanding of outcomes, and what role, if any, the educator is understood to have. The differences are as follows:
I. Focus
The focal issue in situated cognition is how an individual learner is positioned in relation to her community of practice. The emphasis is on how a learner can participate adaptively within this context in a way that is personally and socially meaningful. In contrast, the enactivist perspective is concerned with the co-evolution of learner and context as an ecological unit. Unlike enactivism, situated cognition is not explicitly interested in the reciprocal contributions of the learner to any structural shifts in the community.
II. Basic explanatory schemata
Situated cognition is concerned with how individuals participate within an interactive system; the characteristics of interaction, nature of collaborative work and hierarchical system; control of resources, and types of social practices are considered central. Enactivism, on the other hand, is interested in the internal coherence within a system and its relations on a variety of levels: from the part to the whole and back again.
III. View of knowledge
For situated cognition, there is no preoccupation with an absolute knowable truth, but rather with what is relevant and worth knowing in a given situation and environment. Enactivism sees knowledge as rising from a co-mingling of consciousness, which simultaneously creates and understands its own properties. The difference between the two lies in directionality; the situated perspective sees knowledge as predominantly one-way cognition that shifts according to community, enactivism sees knowledge as in a constant state of flux, with multiple directions of movement.
IV. View of relation of knower to object and situation of knowing
According to situated cognition perspectives, the knower is positioned by virtue of his or her participation in the social community, because that is what defines the activity and relevancy of knowledge. For the enactivist, this experience lies in the perceptual as opposed to exclusively social field.
V. View of learning process
Situated learners acquire increasing skill at participation in a community, which is accompanied by changes in identity and sensitivity to the affordances and limitations of particular activities. Enactivist learners are themselves engaged in changing the nature of the world, which in turn results in changing perceptions of the world.
VI. View of learning goals and outcomes
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