Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center an NSF Science of Learning Center

Under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council is launching a Committee on “Learning Science in Informal Contexts” under the direction of the Board on Science Education. Over the next two years, the committee will conduct a comprehensive synthesis of research on science learning in informal environments. They will author a consensus report that describes the synthesis methodology and the findings, conclusions, and recommendations that emerge. The report will characterize the state of research on learning science in informal environments, and provide guidance for future research in this area. Philip Bell, LIFE Research Strand Leader in Informal Learning, has agreed to co-chair this NRC committee along with Professor Bruce Lewenstein from Cornell University.

This LIFE research study involves collaboration between researchers Barbara Conboy and Patricia Kuhl from the UW Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS) and educational researchers Reed Stevens, Véronique Mertl, and Deborah McCutchen from the UW College of Education. The collaboration brings together research in the brain sciences and language acquisition with research on sociolinguistics and interaction.

The study investigates whether brief levels of exposure to another language (Spanish) leads to phonetic and word learning in that language for 10-month old infants, and to explore the role of social interaction in such learning. Twenty infants, each accompanied by a caregiver, were exposed to Spanish from a native Spanish-speaker (exposure) through 25-minute sessions of book-reading and toy-playing three times a week over one month. Language acquisition was measured through both brain (Event-Related Potentials) and behavioral measures. Each play session was videotaped using 4-cameras to capture the complexity of the social interactions. This methodology allows us to simultaneously view four angles for moment-to-moment analysis of the subtle interactions that take place between the exposure-infant, caregiver-infant, and exposure-caregiver during the Spanish exposure sessions. The analysis, which is currently underway, also includes observing the use of objects by or between individuals in this learning environment. The research seeks to identify specific elements of interaction that influence learning and to understand how individual differences in social and environmental interactions during the exposure sessions may influence the Spanish-language learning.

Professor Angela Calabrese Barton, from Teachers College at Columbia University, visited the LIFE Center at the University of Washington’s College of Education on May 1, 2006. She gave a public lecture summarizing ten years of ethnographic research on how urban youth learn science in-and-out-of-school. LIFE researchers at Stanford and SRI attended the talk by videoconference. Professor Barton spent the rest of the day consulting with LIFE reseearchers about theoretical and methodological issues involved with such fieldwork.