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

Professor Jere Confrey, Professor of Mathematics Education at Washington University in St. Louis visited the LIFE Center at the University of Washington on Wednesday, November 1, 2006. She presented a talk entitled “The Pursuit of Instructional Guidance from Assessments: From High Stakes to Diagnostics to Data Use.”

ABSTRACT: Dr. Jere Confrey discusses the pitfalls with the current federal approach to school improvement embedded in No Child Left Behind. She labels NCLB a “bookends approach” which neglects the instructional core. Drawing on analyses of Texas high stakes tests, she explains how current views of accountability limit the conception of feedback in school change and predicts theoretically why this type of feedback for under-performing urban schools alone will have limited positive effects and constrain innovation. Instead she argues for a course correction which distinguishes valid progress from the production of feedback signals. As partial solution, she provides a number of examples of formative and/or diagnostic assessments deployed to reconceptualize feedback for the purposes of instructional guidance. She further describes how providing practitioners with direct access to data to conduct their own inquiries using software such as “Fathom” improves feedback and increases effective advocacy for children.

On Monday, October 23rd, LIFE Co-PI Roy Pea from Stanford University visited the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)/University of Toronto to present a research colloquium on “Networked collaborative video analysis as a new resource for distributed intelligence and learning.” The colloquium was jointly hosted by IKIT (Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology), the Knowledge Media Design Institute, and the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre.

An international IKIT online forum discussed published works on the DIVER video research software and its applicability to teacher learning with video case materials in anticipation of the presentation, which will also be made accessible for archival video streaming. OISE/UT faculty and doctoral students expressed desire to use DIVER software in their research and educational activities. DIVER is one of the LIFE Center’s research tools for dissemination and support for the learning sciences. Roy also served during his visit to Toronto as an external examiner for a University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies doctoral thesis by Maria Mylopoulos on the topic of “Implicit Theories of Innovation and Expertise: Impact within Medical Teams”.

On October 12th and 13th, 2006, Dr. Justin Dillon visited the LIFE Center on the University of Washington campus. He met with LIFE researchers from the Everyday Science & Technology Group to discuss details of related research. During a brown bag event Dr. Dillon described research from the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS) with museums, science centers and other ISIs in the UK and overseas. This work has focused on engaging the public with scientists; finding new ways to work with schools, and networking institutions across 12 countries.

SHORT BIO: Justin Dillon worked as a high school science teacher for 9 years before joining King’s in 1989. He is now a senior lecturer (Associate Professor) in science and environmental education. He has researched and published in the areas of teacher development, teaching controversial issues and environmental education. He is one of the editors of the International Journal of Science Education.

On Friday, October 13^th, the NSF-funded Science of Learning Centers (SLC’s) will host a full day symposium at the 2006 Society for Neuroscience in Atlanta, Georgia. The satellite will consist of two broad sessions. The first will focus on “Memory, Planning, and Cognition” and will include presentations from Boston’s CELEST Center and discussants John Bruer from the McDonnell Foundation and Elsbeth Stern from the Max Plank Institute for Human Development in Berlin. The second session will focus on “Language, Social Cognition, and Education” and will include presentations by the LIFE Center, the CELEST Center, and Pittsburgh’s PSLC Center. Discussants will be John Geake from the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and John Bruer. In the evening students from the three centers will convene a poster session, which will take place as part of a social hour in which presenters, attendees, and students will have the opportunity to share and discuss their work.

The NSF-funded symposium is designed to: (1) bring faculty and students of the three existing NSF Science of Learning together to present and discuss research projects central to their missions, and (2) to introduce other scientists and practitioners interested in the science of learning to the work of the SLCs.