Practice-Based Learning of Novices in Higher Education: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) Revisited

The chapter extends Lave and Wenger’s Legitimate Peripheral Participation concept to Higher Education and intends to review the concept of LPP by placing the role of novices and technical materiality at the heart of practice-based learning. A narrated description of the events observed in the lab shall attempt to show how a novice learns through practice and with others (both human and non-human), emphasizing the idea that in Higher Education too, and particularly in the passage from the lecture hall to the laboratory practice-based learning is situated, socio-material and participated. The pedagogy of practice, activated in the scientific laboratory context fosters the co-existence of learning practices and academic interests, producing tension between codified knowledge and unstable expertise in evolution, between the procedural standards and artisan skills incorporated by both novices and experts. Only by integrating these two types of knowledge can a robust university training and qualification be achieved.