2011-2012 Schedule

This is an introductory survey course intended primarily for first year graduate students in the Learning Sciences. Its purpose is to introduce students to basic concepts and findings of cognitive theory and research relevant to the Learning Sciences, with specific focus on how these concepts and findings apply to formal and informal learning. The course also serves to familiarize students with the culture and practices of work in the Learning Sciences so that they can begin to participate effectively in research endeavors.

Design is practice. As with any practice, there are skills and knowledge that distinguish experts from others. In this class we are interested in the design of educational experiences. The phrase design of educational experiences is intended to capture the breadth of possible ways people can learn and settings in which they might learn. Examples include things like curriculum materials, educational software, workplace training, museum exhibits, and television shows. The goal of this course is to provide students with foundational skills and knowledge from which they can develop expertise in the design of educational experiences. Students will work in groups to engage in hands-on design activities.

This course focuses on scholarly research and thinking underlying the goals, content, and programs of school curriculum and the place of culture in their development. We will examine the forces that have shaped recent education reform from the perspective of history, of the diversity of student performance on national and international studies, and of changes in core subject disciplines, the concept of cultural, mathematical, or scientific literacy, and in national demographics.

In this small, discussion-based seminar course, we will examine literature on how perceived stress, and its physiological correlates, are related to patterns of emotion, cognition and behavior relevant to understanding academic functioning in children, adolescents, and college-age young adults (Stress and Success). We will also examine how individual differences in child and adolescent sleep hours and quality relate to academic functioning, and consider sleep as one pathway by which differences in stress may impact academic performance (ZZZs to As).

Stress, stress biology, and sleep timing and quality are all strongly contextually determined. We will identify key influences on child and adolescent stress and sleep, ranging from family, neighborhood, school and peer effects to the impact of modern electronic media use. We then consider the possibility that contextually determined differences in stress and sleep may help account for socioeconomic and racial-ethnic disparities in performance and academic outcomes.

Students enrolled in this class are expected to read assigned readings, help choose supplemental readings guided by the intersection of their own interests with the class materials, and to participate in and help lead class discussions. Evaluation will be based on the quality of participation in class discussion, and a final paper based on a topic of the student’s choice relevant to understanding associations between stress, sleep and academic performance.

This course serves as an introduction to the quantitative methods sequence and will cover applied statistical methods. The course will provide useful tools for students who intend to conduct their own statistical analyses, as well as those who want to become critical consumers of others' analyses. Topics to be covered include descriptive measures; basic probability; sampling and sample size estimation; hypothesis testing; techniques for analyzing categorical data; ANOVA; presenting and describing statistical results. I think that quantitative methods are best learned through hands-on practice, so we will do many computer-based assignments that will involve both conducting data analysis and coherently describing the results using both numbers and words.

Journal Club supports you as you practice some of the skills that are crucial to reading current research articles for the purposes of building an argument that motivates or extends your own work. In addition to gleaning interesting new conceptual ideas from articles, this seminar focuses on how to identify underlying theoretical assumptions in research, critique methodologies, examine evidence in relation to claims, make sense of conclusions and implications of research. In addition, each week we take time to discuss the ways in which the article speaks to our own work - whether methodologically, theoretically, or even the direct findings to support or refute our research. All PhD students (2nd year and above), postdocs, and faculty are welcome and encouraged to attend. All that is required is for you to read the article each week and come prepared to discuss it.

In this seminar, GK-12 Fellows will explore relevant Learning Science research through readings and discussion to help contextualize their classroom experiences. The seminar focuses on conceptual change, model-based inquiry, curriculum design, assessment and learning performance design, and cultural impacts on learning and engagement. A final project consists of the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a classroom investigation linked to each Fellow's graduate research. Registration for GK-12 Fellows only.

Constructionist approach to design. Participants discuss learning design literature, critique software, and design and build computer-based learning environments (CBLE). Student LE designs can include microworlds, goal-based scenarios, games, robots, and complex systems models among many others working primarily in Logo, NetLogo, and NetLogoLab.

This course will review current ideas about reforms in science education, drawing on recent research on science learning and instructional innovation, and on reform documents such as national standards. We will examine approaches that attempt to teach science throughout K-12 as a knowledge-building practice, i.e., by engaging in scientific investigations and participating in scientific practices such as argumentation, explanation, and working with scientific models. The course will provide experience in understanding student thinking, articulating learning goals, and analyzing and adapting curriculum materials in light of current research-based view of science learning. Fulfills an MSED requirement.

School reform has become a regular fixture in public, professional, and academic deliberations about our nation's schools. In the past couple of decades, educational reform proposals have grown significantly as both state and federal governments have become increasingly interested in developing education policies. This course will provide students with an introduction to key issues in K-12 educational policy. The course is designed to develop students' abilities to examine, analyze and critique education policies, education policy-making, and education policy implementation. Further, students will develop an appreciation for issues relating to policy effects. Given the vastness of the terrain, the course will be grounded in three education policy/reform initiatives that have gained considerable currency over the past decade: (1) Standards and Accountability (2) Teacher Quality & (3) School Choice - Vouchers and Charter Schools.

This course is intended to be a continuation of the quantitative methods sequence that begins with Quantitative Methods I. The course will cover applied statistical methods, and will provide useful tools for students who intend to conduct their own statistical analyses, as well as those who want to become critical consumers of others' analyses. Topics to be covered include the use of data for descriptive and causal analyses, linear regression, experimental design, panel data methods, hierarchical linear models and instrumental variables. Coursework will include both problem solving and computer-based assignments that involve conducting data analysis and writing and communicating descriptions of statistical results.

Education research is currently undergoing a dramatic change: it is becoming increasingly computational. Graduate students in education have traditionally been trained in two methods streams: qualitative and quantitative. But continual advances in computation have begun to alter this formula by introducing new methods of research such as social network analysis, statistical natural language processing, agent-based modeling, and cognitive modeling. The purpose of this course is to provide education graduate students with an introduction to a selection of these methods. Student assignments will include programming tasks in multiple programming languages. But no prior programming experience is required.

This course is designed to introduce students to qualitative research, including field work, document analysis, and interviewing. Students will explore qualitative research approaches by undertaking their own research study as well as reading and discussing relevant writing on the subject. The readings, topics for discussion, and assignments in this course center on three areas: (1) The epistemological underpinnings of approaches to qualitative research. (2) The practice of qualitative inquiry. Students will explore sampling strategies; research design; observation and interview techniques; and approaches to data analysis and data presentation. (3) Other key issues that researchers encounter in doing qualitative research, including ethics and social relationships in the context of field work.

Journal Club supports you as you practice some of the skills that are crucial to reading current research articles for the purposes of building an argument that motivates or extends your own work. In addition to gleaning interesting new conceptual ideas from articles, this seminar focuses on how to identify underlying theoretical assumptions in research, critique methodologies, examine evidence in relation to claims, make sense of conclusions and implications of research. In addition, each week we take time to discuss the ways in which the article speaks to our own work - whether methodologically, theoretically, or even the direct findings to support or refute our research. All PhD students (2nd year and above), postdocs, and faculty are welcome and encouraged to attend. All that is required is for you to read the article each week and come prepared to discuss it.

In this seminar, GK-12 Fellows will explore relevant Learning Science research through readings and discussion to help contextualize their classroom experiences. The seminar focuses on conceptual change, model-based inquiry, curriculum design, assessment and learning performance design, and cultural impacts on learning and engagement. A final project consists of the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a classroom investigation linked to each Fellow's graduate research. Registration for GK-12 Fellows only.

Our concern, in the Learning Sciences, is with helping individuals to learn; we want to help them learn to engage in new tasks, and to understand things that they didn’t understand before. It is the assumption of this course that we will be in a better position to achieve these goals if we can somehow characterize the knowledge that individuals possess at any given time, and how this knowledge changes as they learn. The characterization of knowledge is the business of this course. We will explore the techniques of knowledge representation, primarily as practiced by cognitive scientists. Our goals in this regard are both theoretical and methodological. We will examine various theoretical perspectives on the nature of knowledge, and we will practice various methodological and analytical techniques for studying the knowledge possessed by individuals.

In this course, we combine a Learning Sciences with a Human Development perspective in order to understand the dual cognitive and socio-emotional dimensions of learning, including physiological dimensions. We examine an ecological perspective on learning and development to understand how individual mental functioning and socio-emotional well-being are related to the following:

· the nature of our interactions in social settings with other people, and
· the social organization, physical arrangements and availability of intellective resources (scaffolding, artifacts, tools, ideas).

We examine proximal (close to the individual, such as family, peer and other social networks), as well as more distal contexts (i.e. neighborhoods, nation states) that support or constrain our learning and development. Such contexts are always cultural in nature.

This course focuses on basic methods for designing instruction. In the first part of the course, you will conduct task analyses and student interviews to understand the knowledge, skills and dispositions learners must acquire and the learning challenges they face. Next we'll use basic interaction design methods like brainstorming, personas, scenarios and diagrams to generate and sketch possible instructional solutions. The later part of the course will focus on prototyping a lesson and lesson observation. The final task will be to design a research plan for testing a learning principle used in the design. By the end of the course you will be able to create more effective learning environments, to use research to inform design, and to develop research questions based on design.

Teaching with Technology is a course designed to help teachers use empirical models to explore new technologies, evaluate their educational potential, and develop scenarios of use consistent with their teaching philosophy. The course starts with a reflection on the relationship between teaching philosophy and technology use. We will also explore children’s everyday uses of technology. We then will take an in-depth look at three emerging technologies: personal broadcasting (e.g., blogs, podcasts), Wikipedia, and gaming. In each case, you will get extensive experience with the technology, examine empirical models that can be applied to the technologies, and reflect on how the technologies intersect with your teaching philosophy. The course also provides exposure to a variety of technologies that are common school settings.

This course in advanced qualitative research is designed for students who have taken an introductory graduate course in qualitative research methods and are in the process of analyzing qualitative data for their trial research, dissertation, or some other research project. The course will focus chiefly on:

a) Analyzing qualitative data to develop and justify assertions.
b) Epistemological underpinnings of various qualitative approaches.
c) Issues of reliability, validity, and making generalizations.

The course will be conducted as a seminar with class work organized around prescribed readings on a particular issue as well as data and other materials from researchers’ and students’ qualitative studies.

This course examines the nature of professional development for teachers in the context of reform. We briefly review recent research on teacher cognition and consider the implications for professional development. Next we explore issues related to the format and structure of professional development programs — who should receive professional development, when, where, and how. Finally, we examine the content of several innovative professional development programs including case discussions, lesson study, and video clubs. This course is designed as a follow-up to LS 434 — Teacher Thinking and Learning. A number of readings from LS 434 will be considered as background material for this course.

A portion of each class meeting will be spent analyzing professional development activities for teachers. We will use the theoretical perspectives presented in the weekly readings as a starting point for these analyses. We will examine both the design of various programs as well as what teachers learn as they engage with a given program and how this learning takes place. Students will be invited to bring data from current research projects for the class to examine in this context.

In this seminar we explore a variety of sociocultural perspectives in conceptualizing and analyzing language and literacy practices and learning. These perspectives include sociolinguistic ethnography, Bakhtinian dialogic approach, critical discourse analysis, and sociological theory of literacy and capital (drawing from Pierre Bourdieu). Our aim is to understand core theoretical concepts from these perspectives, as well as consider how these concepts are used by scholars in analyzing discourse in educational settings and in discussing issues of language and literacy practices. We approach this by examining how a theoretical framework shapes the assumptions we make about language, the questions we ask, and the kinds of answers we seek. Students have the opportunity to explore one or two perspectives in greater depth through a project examining language/literacy data.

In this seminar, GK-12 Fellows will explore relevant Learning Science research through readings and discussion to help contextualize their classroom experiences. The seminar focuses on conceptual change, model-based inquiry, curriculum design, assessment and learning performance design, and cultural impacts on learning and engagement. A final project consists of the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a classroom investigation linked to each Fellow's graduate research. Registration for GK-12 Fellows only.

Journal Club supports you as you practice some of the skills that are crucial to reading current research articles for the purposes of building an argument that motivates or extends your own work. In addition to gleaning interesting new conceptual ideas from articles, this seminar focuses on how to identify underlying theoretical assumptions in research, critique methodologies, examine evidence in relation to claims, make sense of conclusions and implications of research. In addition, each week we take time to discuss the ways in which the article speaks to our own work - whether methodologically, theoretically, or even the direct findings to support or refute our research. All PhD students (2nd year and above), postdocs, and faculty are welcome and encouraged to attend. All that is required is for you to read the article each week and come prepared to discuss it.

Constructionism is the name given by Seymour Papert to that sub-species of constructivist thought that focuses on the special advantages for learning derived from the external construction of an artifact alongside the internal construction of a mental model. Constructionist thinking has been deeply influential on the learning science and educational research, especially in the areas of learning technologies and mathematics and science education reform.

Constructionist thought has its origins in the developmental psychology of Piaget and the early Vygotsky. It has been greatly influenced by the works of subsequent cognitive psychologists and artificial intelligence researchers such as Newell, Simon McCullough & Minsky. It has also been shaped by the literature on alternative epistemologies, feminism and deconstruction such as that of Keller, Turkle, Illich & Latour. Its strong connection to computer programming as a constructive activity has been deeply explored first by Papert and more recently by DiSessa, Eisenberg, Noss & Hoyles. Its advocacy for a reexamination of curricular content in the context of computation and a reorganization of content around “powerful ideas” has had a significant influence on the educational research community. Often this influence has resulted in heated reactions to constructionist ideas.

In this seminar, we will closely read Constructionist sources as well as sources that had significant impact on Constructionist thought. In cases, where Constructionist thought met a significant counter reaction, we will read some of the counter-constructionist literature. The main thrust of the course is the reading but, to fully appreciate many of these papers, we will become conversant with the software described. An important component of the course will be developing skills in and conducting Piagetian clinical interviews that draw out the subject’s thinking on a topic.

Normally, LS 426 is a prerequisite for this class. In some cases, with permission of instructor, this prerequisite can be waived.