ABSTRACT
Apprenticeship is an inherently social learning method with a long history of helping novices become experts in fields as diverse as midwifery, construction, and law. At the center of apprenticeship is the concept of more experienced people assisting less experienced ones, providing structure and examples to support the attainment of goals. Traditionally apprenticeship has been associated with learning in the context of becoming skilled in a trade or craft-a task that typically requires both the acquisition of knowledge, concepts, and perhaps psychomotor skills and the development of the ability to apply the knowledge and skills in a context-appropriate manner-and far predates formal schooling as it is known today. In many nonindustrializednations apprenticeship remains thepredominantmethodof teaching and learning. However, the overall concept of learning from experts through social interactions is not one that should be relegated to vocational and trade-based training while K-12 and higher educational institutions seek to prepare students for operating in an information-based society. Apprenticeship as a method of teaching and learning is just as relevant within the cognitive and metacognitive domain as it is in the psychomotor domain.
