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

Investigators: Brigid Barron, Caitlin Martin, Lori Takeuchi
Institution: Stanford University

Description of Graphic Image:
Figure 1: Learning ecology framework for understanding individual differences in the development of technological fluency

Project and Outcomes Description: “Technological fluency development in peer and home contexts”

The phrase “the incredible shrinking pipeline” (Camp, 1997) was coined to reflect the fact that as one moves up the academic ladder, fewer females participate in technological domains. Theories and data for disparities in participation point to differential early experiences, learning environments that feel inhospitable to those who participate, and negative stereotyping of those who are involved in such pursuits (AAUW, 2000; Margolis & Fischer, 2002). Experience is a critical variable to understand for designing educational environments that support equity and facilitate the engagement of a broader range of students. While we know game playing and computing classes are dominated by young men, we know less about what young women are finding of interest (AAUW, 2000). In this study we identified 4 male and 4 female middle school students who were highly engaged in fluency building activities, pursuing projects after school. A life history approach was used in order to understand the emergence and evolution of technologically mediated activities and to begin to conceptualize the kinds of material and social supports that allowed them to learn. Learning histories were constructed based on interviews with focal participants, their parents, and other learning partners. A learning ecology framework (Barron, 2004; 2006) is being used to understand how learning is distributed among virtual and physical settings (Figure 1) and individual timelines chart the location, participants, and evolution of activities for each child is being constructed (e.g., Figure 2). We also coded a number of variables to compare the histories of boys and girls including the age at which they began engaging in fluency building activities and participated in structured learning (Figure 2). We also coded for the roles parents have played in learning using a system we developed based on the interviews (Figure 3).

Key Findings:
(1) Girls became involved in activities at an older age, and their first collaborators tend to be peers rather than parents.
(2) Parents played fewer roles in the learning of girls than boys.
(3) Girls had fewer adults who contributed to their learning.
(4) Boys and girls pursued their learning both in and out of school, girls took more school-based classes

Additional Graphic Images

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

Figure 4.

Description of Graphic Images:
Figure 2.
This figure shows the early emergence of activity for one of our male participants, his extensive network of mentors and co-learners, and the distribution of his learning across settings.
Figure 3.
This graph shows the average age of our case study learners when they began: using a computer at all, using it for fluency building activities, and using it on a regular basis. These ages were obtained from child and parent interviews.
Figure 4.
Roles either parent plays in male and female adolescents’ learning. This graph shows the percentage of male and female learners who have either a mother or father who plays a specific role in their learning.

Investigators: Jennifer Amsterlaw, Robb Lindgren, Sandra Okita, Laurie McCarthy, Heather Zimmerman
Institutions: University of Washington and Stanford University

Description of Graphic Image:
Profs. Chuck and Candy Goodwin addressing LIFE students, post-doctoral fellows and graduate students.

Project and Outcomes Description:

“Student and Post-doctoral Fellow Invited Speaker Series”

The LIFE Center graduate students and post-doctoral fellows were pleased to host the LIFE Center Invited Lecture Series. The Lecture Series was organized and implemented by LIFE Student Leadership Group (SLG), a taskforce of the LIFE Center Leadership management structure comprised of five graduate students and post-docs. The Lecture Series is part of the LIFE Center’s mission of capacity building in the learning science field. The Lecture Series accomplishes this goal by: (1) providing professional development experiences for the students and post-docs organizing and implementing the Lecture Series and (2) bringing both emerging and established scholars who the students and post-docs deemed important to their work. The inaugural LIFE lectures in this series occurred during spring 2006.

First speakers: Profs. Charles Goodwin and Majorie Harness Goodwin
Charles (Chuck) Goodwin, Professor of Applied Linguistics and Marjorie Harness (Candy) Goodwin, Professor of Anthropology from the University of California at Los Angeles visited the LIFE Center at the University of Washington’s College of Education on June 2, 2006. The Goodwins spent the morning with research groups, with individual students consulting on LIFE projects, and held a videoconference with graduate students from UW and Stanford. They then each gave a public lecture summarizing their years of language and interaction research. Chuck spoke on his ethnographic work on the interaction strategies of professional archeologists and of a family where one member has aphasia to illustrate how people work together to create shared settings for understanding and for meaning-making. Candy shared findings from her work with families UCLA’s Center on the Everyday Lives of Families (CELF) to illustrate how some everyday practices and routines allow for imaginative knowledge work and shared linguistic development. LIFE researchers at Stanford and SRI attended the talks by videoconference.

Second speaker: Professor Michael Cole

Michael (Mike) Cole, Professor of Communication and Psychology from the University of California at San Diego visited the LIFE Center at Stanford University’s College of Education on June 6, 2006. Cole spent the morning with research groups consulting on LIFE projects. Cole then gave a public lecture on the future of the field of cultural psychology and the possible challenges, highlighting examples from his work with Fifth Dimension after school learning environments and Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition over the past 25 years. LIFE researchers at Washington and SRI attended the talk by videoconference. Cole conducted a second videoconference after his talk with students and post-docs at both campuses where a lively discussion ensued on Cole’s work and conceptual interfaces with the work of LIFE.

Investigators: Baba Kofi A. Weusijana, Drue Gawel, Patricia Mead
Institutions: University of Washington and Norfolk State University

Description of Graphic Image: Drue Gawel, University of Washington graduate student, describing the Second Life virtual environment

Project and Outcomes Description:

“NSU Engineering Education: Exploring the Use of a Virtual Environment to Enhance Understanding of Introductory Concepts in Electromagnetic Fields”

LIFE has worked with one of its partners, Dr. Patricia Mead at Norfolk State University to document and study NSU’s reform of their engineering education program. As part of the partnership, LIFE is supporting the participation of NSU undergraduate students in research and development of two modules on difficult to grasp fundamental principles part of the Introduction to Electromagnetic Fields course at NSU. The modules will include a tutorial on various physical forms of charged materials, and a challenge-based design problem intended to engage students in a team-based design experience. The teaching modules will be developed based on the Legacy Challenge stages that are part of the How People Learn work spearheaded by two of LIFE’s senior researchers. The desired outcome is to achieve improved performance on the Electromagnetic Fields Concepts Inventory (EMCI) developed by Notaros et al [2002] and to positively affect student efficacy regarding their ability to utilize modern technologies to solve engineering problems. The work will contribute to creating capacity at NSU for further integration of learning sciences into their educational practices.

Reference: Notaros, Branislav M. “Concept Inventory Assessment Instruments for Electromagnetics Education” IEEE (2002): 684-687.

Investigators: Baba Kofi Weusijana, Nora Sabelli, Wanda Eugene, Brigid Barron, Reed Stevens
Institutions: University of Washington, Stanford University, SRI International, National Society of Black Engineers

Description of Graphic Image:
Logos (left to right) of the NSF LIFE Center and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE)

Project and Outcomes Description

“LIFE Education and Collaboration Outreach Partnership with National Society of Black Engineers”

The NSF Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Science of Learning Center (SLC) and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) have agreed to collaborate on mutually beneficial outreach and research projects. This partnership includes work on survey research, conference interviews and workshops, graduate and undergraduate research projects, community outreach, and researching career pathways and informal factors for engineers.

This partnership will increase knowledge, awareness, and participation of future faculty in learning sciences research and its applications to teaching. The membership of NSBE includes students who will become first teaching and research assistants, and eventually faculty members with research and teaching responsibilities. LIFE Center researchers will provide advice to, and will learn from, NSBE members. Both organizations will establish research links that allow their members to work together to enhance the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines and contribute to the development of new generations of leaders in the learning sciences.

NSBE seeks to be better informed of the challenges their membership face in getting an education in STEM fields and how NSBE can best assist them. The LIFE Center members are researchers and educators at the cutting edge of the learning sciences who can offer guidance and expertise. Furthermore, Dr. Reed Stevens of the University of Washington’s College of Education and other LIFE Center members are studying the informal and formal educational pathways of engineers, while Prof. Brigid Barron of Stanford University is studying the development of technological fluency in youth. Together NSBE and the LIFE Center can expand what is known about individuals participating in STEM educational efforts and careers, prepare future faculty to address their teaching in a principled way, and find ways to improve the experiences of them all.

Collaborative activities have already begun. The LIFE Center and NSBE have developed a Web-Based survey of NSBE’s collegiate membership. LIFE post-doc Baba Kofi Weusijana and Auburn University Computer Science and Software Engineering graduate student Wanda Eugene, both NSBE members, initiated this collaboration. Ms. Eugene visited Stanford University to consult with Dr. Brigid Barron, and to SRI International, where she consulted with several staff members: Dr. Deb Emory, Ms. Amy Lewis, and Ms. Soleste Hilberg. The results of Ms. Eugene’s work have been incorporated into her George Mason University masters project report. She has subsequently applied for a LIFE Center Fellowship, and will spend a term at Stanford University, where she will participate in LIFE Center research.

Investigators: Andrew N. Meltzoff and Jean Decety
Institution: University of Washington

Description of Graphic Image:

Static illustration of the video-clips used in the experiment, as they were shown to the participants. Left image: 1st-person visual perspective (as if its your own hand). Right-image: 3rd-person visual perspective (as if you are watching someone else’s hand).

Project and Outcomes Description

“Neural Circuits Involved in Imitation and Perspective-Taking”

Reference: Jackson, P. L., Meltzoff, A. N., & Decety, J. (2006). Neural circuits involved in imitation and perspective taking. NeuroImage, 31, 429-439.

Is it important for the teacher (expert) to adopt the same perspective of the student (novice) when teaching a new skill? Are “mirror neurons” equally involved when the teacher is facing or side-by-side with students? The idea that visual perspective can influence teaching and learning has long been thought to be important in the learning sciences but there are few neuroscience studies on this topic. Meltzoff, a LIFE co-PI, and colleauges used both brain and behavioral techniques to addresses this topic. In the fMRI study, 16 participants watched video-clips depicting simple actions. The participants either watched passively or imitated these actions. Half the video-clips depicted actions filmed from a 1st person perspective (the perspective of the participant, i.e., the camera was taking the image from the participant’s viewpoint), and half from a frontal view as if watching someone else (3rd-person perspective). Behavioral results showed that latency to imitate were significantly shorter for the 1st-person perspective than the 3rd-person perspective. Functional imaging results demonstrate that imitation vs. passive observation of actions yielded enhanced signal in the contralateral somatosensory and motor cortices, cerebellum, left inferior parietal lobule and superior parietal cortex, and left ventral premotor cortex. Moreover, comparisons of the two visual perspectives showed more activity in the left sensory-motor cortex for 1st-person, even during observation alone. These findings suggest that the 1st-person perspective is more tightly coupled to the motor sensory system than the 3rd-person perspective, which requires additional visuospatial transformation.

These results have implications for many aspects of the learning sciences. For example, scientists and practitioners interested in designing educational software involving avatars are curious about the impact that the ‘perspective’ of the intelligent agent on the screen will have on learning. The current research shows that there are measurable differences in learning as a function of whether or not the model is showing an action from the same perspective as the student learner. More generally, the current research is part of a larger program examining how information is shared and transferred between experts and novices, using both brain and behavioral measures.

Investigators: John Bransford and Daniel Schwartz
Institutions: University of Washington and Stanford University

Description of Graphic Image:

Depiction of core concepts in ETS talk on adaptive expertise and transfer
Project and Outcomes Description:

“LIFE connects with the Educational Testing Service (ETS)”

Important concepts from LIFE were presented at the 10th annual William H. Angoff Memorial Lecture held at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey in April 2006. William H. Angoff was a highly respected member of ETS and lived his life in a way that earned deep respect from all who knew him or knew his work. The lecture was authored by John Bransford (UW) and Dan Schwartz (Stanford) and presented in person by Bransford. Many ideas that are emerging from LIFE’s work played an important role in the talk, which focused on emerging ideas about adaptive expertise and transfer and their implications for assessment. The major argument was that traditional assessments, while being valuable for many purposes, provide only a static picture of momentary expertise and fail to reveal the degree to which people have been prepared to learn in new settings. New theories of transfer highlight differences between “sequestered problem solving” approaches to transfer and assessment (the format used in most tests) compared to ones that emphasize “preparation for future learning” (Schwartz, Bransford & Sears, 2005). Emerging ideas about how to create large scale assessments of people’s preparation for future learning were also discussed. Discussions with ETS members revealed a number of promising connections between work at ETS and work talking place in LIFE. Bransford and Schwartz are working on a written version of their talk that will be published by the ETS as part of the William H. Angoff series.

Investigator: Sandra Okita
Institution: Stanford University

Description of Graphic Image: Experimental Design of Study

Project and Outcomes Description:

“Learning by Observing”

Observing someone whom you have taught to solve problems leads to better learning than teaching and then doing the same problems yourself.
Forty adult participants tested the hypothesis that an important aspect of learning-by-teaching is the opportunity to watch one’s student perform. Participants studied a passage on the body’s mechanisms for causing fever. They then completed one of four conditions: (a) Teach and then observe their student answer questions; (b) Teach and then self-study the same questions oneself; (c) Self-study and then observe a student answer questions; (d) Self-study and then self-study again. Results indicated that teaching and observing one’s student led to the greatest learning gains both for the questions one’s student tried to answer and new questions that had not been raised. In some cases, it is better to observe than do.

Additional Graphic Image

Description of Graphic Image:
Average Posttest Scores on Each Question Set by Condition.

Investigators: Patricia K. Kuhl, Toshiaki Imada, Rajeev Raizada, Lotus Jo-Fu Lin
Institution: University of Washington

Description of Graphic Image:
Figure 1.
Testing Chinese-English bilinguals inside MRI scanner.

Project and Outcomes Description:

“Language and Mathematics”

Previous behavioral studies have shown that bilinguals are slower in performing mental calculation in their non-preferred (or non-dominant, language) than in their preferred language (Marsh & Maki, 1976; McClain & Huang, 1982; Bernardo et al., 2001). Theories and data have suggested that arithmetic facts are stored in auditory-verbal memory because they are acquired via rote memorization (Dehaene, 1992; Spelke & Tsivkin, 2001). Mental calculation thus depends on language-specific verbal codes that were learned when the basic arithmetic facts were acquired in school. Our current study examined this language-specific effect, at the cortical level, on mental calculation in bilinguals.

We tested six Chinese-English bilingual graduate students with two-digit exact addition problems presented in their preferred (first; L1) and non-preferred (second; L2) languages with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Students also completed phonetic processing tasks in both languages. Results showed an extended activation in L2 exact calculation compared to that in L1, after subtracting language-specific processing at the phonetic level. Activated regions included the inferior parietal and middle frontal regions, suggesting higher demands on language and working memory. The results show that slower processing in mental calculation in one’s L2 goes beyond basic phonetic processing, affecting broad cortical regions.

This result has particular implications for bilingual education in that performing arithmetic in one’s non-preferred language requires more neural resources. It also emphasizes the impact of language used in early bilingual education.

Additional Graphic Images

Description of Graphic Images:
Figure 2. (Top, Left)
Brain regions activated more by calculation in English (subject’s second language) than by calculation in Chinese (subject’s first language) after subtracting the activation for phonetic processing.
Figure 3. (Bottom, Left)
Performing mental calculation in one’s less preferred language is cognitively and neurally demanding. It may require bilinguals to translate problems before solving them, which leads to slower response and demands more neural resources.
Figure 4. (Bottom, Right)
Different languages code numbers differently. Some languages, like Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, use a more transparent base-10 system than other languages, like English and Spanish. These cross-language differences might have an impact on higher-level mental calculation.

Investigators: John Bransford, Anders Rosenquist, Leah Bricker, Stacy Klein, Tina Stanford
Institutions: SRI International, University of Washington, Vanderbilt University, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education Center

Description of Graphic Image: Stacy Klein from Vanderbilt University, leading HPL discussion with K-12 science teachers

Project and Outcomes Description

“K-12 How People Learn Workshop for North Carolina Science Teachers”

On March 14-15, 2006, the LIFE Center presented a K-12 How People Learn (HPL) Workshop to the Kenan Fellows, a prestigious group of K-12 science teachers. Other audience members included William Tucci, Director of K-12 programs for the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology, & Science and Samuel Houston, President and CEO of the North Carolina Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education Center. The workshop was held at the Friday Institute on the grounds of North Carolina State University.

The workshop had two goals: adapt college-level faculty HPL workshops for teachers, and explore how to further work with teachers to enable them to use the principles in class and share them with colleagues. LIFE Center PI, John Bransford, kicked off the workshop with an interesting and informative discussion of How People Learn principles and the LIFE Center’s aims and goals. The rest of the first day was facilitated by Stacy Klein, a faculty member at Vanderbilt University and a high school science teacher. She presented the Legacy Cycle, a curriculum design model based in part on HPL principles, to the Kenan Fellows. She then tasked them with developing a Legacy Cycle experience for their students.

Participants were given time to work on their own Legacy Cycle lessons during the workshop, and volunteers shared their drafts for feedback. Participants used a web environment (Tapped In) to post their Legacy Cycle lesson drafts and comments subsequently about how the lessons performed in their classrooms. As part of the collaboration, LIFE researchers will work with the Kenan Institute and teachers to assess the effectiveness of these secondary training sessions. Several Kenan teachers used the presentation materials and their experience to train colleagues on the development of Legacy Cycle-based lesson plans.
At the end of the workshop, participants were asked to give the LIFE Center feedback about the workshop and about how the LIFE Center can best disseminate research findings to a K-12 audience. The LIFE Center is planning more K-12 STEM teacher collaborations during the 2006-2007 school year. The collaboration includes the transfer of workshop process and materials to the Tapped In collaborative environment, where it will be used to offer web-based courses for teachers.

Additional Graphic Image

Description of Graphic Image:
LIFE Center PI John Bransford presenting via video link to Kenan Fellows during HPL workshop.

Investigators: David Sears and Daniel Schwartz
Institution: Stanford University

Description of Graphic Image: Experimental design and results

Project and Outcomes Description

“Innovation and Efficiency in Small Group Interactions”

Small group interactions improve student learning and transfer compared to working alone when the groups have to innovate solutions but not when they can rely on a set of prescribed solutions.

In the first phase of the study, college students learned about the chi-square statistic working alone or in pairs. Crossed with this factor was whether students worked under conditions of efficiency or innovation. In the efficiency condition, subjects were told how to solve chi-square problems and practiced on sets of data. Subjects in the innovation condition received the same data sets, but they had to innovate a way to compute a number that characterized each data set. Afterwards, all students received direct instruction on chi-square related statistics. On a direct test of their knowledge, all the conditions performed equally well. However, in the middle of posttest, there was a worked example that showed how to solve a chi-square related statistic (Cohen’s Kappa). At the end of the test, there was a transfer problem that required using the new statistic from the worked example. The innovation pairs learned better from the worked example and spontaneously used it to solve the transfer problem compared to other conditions. Moreover, the efficiency pairs performed about the same as the efficiency individuals indicating that group work requires specific task conditions to leverage the benefits of groups.

The result is important because it indicates (a) how specific task conditions can provide social interaction a special advantage over working alone; and (b) how measures of how well students are prepared to learn can reveal important differences in the quality of initial learning that are missed by standard tests.