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

Kuhl, P. K. (April, 2007). Early learning, the brain, and society. UW Provost’s Distinguished Lecture, Seattle, WA.

Conboy, B. T. & Kuhl, P. K. (2007, April). ERP mismatch negativity effects in 11-month-old infants after exposure to Spanish. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Boston, MA.

Bricker, L. A., Amsterlaw, J., Lee, T. R., Bell, P. & Meltzoff, A. N. (2007, April). Connecting ethnographies and experiments: Methodological and theoretical considerations of coordinating research on metacognition from the lab and from everyday settings. In P. Bell (Chair), Methodological challenges and innovations in studying learning in informal contexts. Poster presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL.

Researcher: Patricia Kuhl

The Provost’s Distinguished Lecture is given each year by a University of Washington faculty member who can address both scientists and the public on issues of strong interest to society.

Dr. Patricia Kuhl was invited to address the community on scientific advances in our understanding of the effects of experience on early learning and brain function, and the implications of these findings for education. The lecture was recorded for broadcast on cable TV, and is currently available on the UWTV web site.

Tzou, C., Zimmerman, H. & Bell, P. (2007, April 17). Bringing students’ activity structures into the classroom: Curriculum design implications from an ethnographic study of fifth graders’ images of science. Paper presented at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST) 2007 Annual Meeting as part of the session “Explorations in the Cultural Foundations of Children’s Images of Science” (Philip Bell, chair), New Orleans, LA.

This paper asks the question: How can we apply what we know about students’ everyday scientific sense-making practices to the design of an in-school science and health curriculum? This study is part of an ethnographic study in which we follow 13 children in school and into their homes and communities. We use an Everyday Expertise Framework to analyze these students’ scientific sense-making activity systems from individual, social, and cultural planes. We look for instances in the ethnographic data in which students either choose to participate in scientific activities or clearly disengage from activities that could be scientific. We ask what images of science might be in play in their decisions to engage (or not), and how we can build from these activity systems into the design of formal instruction. Specifically, we are studying what personal epistemologies emerge for students during these activities, what images of science are available to students in cultural artifacts, and how we can connect students’ personal epistemologies to the scientific practices in the design of a classroom curriculum. This paper discusses three case studies from the data and design implications that emerge from these cases.

Zimmerman, H. T. & Bell, P., (2007, April 17). Seeing, Doing, and Describing Everyday Science: Mapping Images of Science Across School, Community, and Home Boundaries. Paper presented at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST) 2007 Annual Meeting as part of the session “Explorations in the Cultural Foundations of Children’s Images of Science” (Philip Bell, chair), New Orleans, LA.

To better understand thinking and learning about science, we examine children’s activities (and their reflections about their activities) in their school, homes and communities. In this paper, we analyze elementary children’s epistemologies about science in comparison to their daily practices related to science across the settings of their lives, with the goal to analyze scientific knowledge work that children undertake. We employ an Everyday Expertise analytical framework to study the development of science understandings at three planes: individual learner, social groups, and societal/community resources. Our research questions revolve around how multiple experiences combine to influence children’s thinking about science, as well as their thinking about their participation in future science activities. In addition to studying the cognition and social interactions of the children while they participate in their activity systems, we also conduct clinical interviews, ethnographic interviews, and participant self-documentation procedures to look at the participants’ conceptual understandings of science to compare thinking about science across cases. Findings from a cross case analysis of science learners are shared, as are four in-depth case studies of learning and thinking about science. Through our analysis, we show how in-depth analysis of epistemologies and practices related to science show nuances of science participation and understanding.

Reeve, S., Bricker, L. & Bell, P. (2007, April 16). Children and family understandings of health, illness, and health institutions. Paper presented at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST) 2007 Annual Meeting as part of the session “Connecting Science Learning to Personal Health: Understanding the Influence of Instruction, Family, Social Networks, and Institutions” (Philip Bell, chair), New Orleans, LA.

There is a need for to develop more sophisticated theoretical accountings of how people learn to engage in everyday health literacy practices amid relevant ecologies of information, institutional structures, social networks, and health resources present in their lives. We approach the work using a theoretical framework that seeks to understand the development of everyday expertise across social settings and domains (Bell et al, 2006). In this paper we attempt to empirically document and theoretically understand: (a) how health literacy practices are constituted in activity systems within families in social and material terms, (b) how conceptual ecologies may provide an explanatory basis for the everyday health decisions of participants and (c) how broader elements of a cultural toolkit are mobilized in the lives of families and set up specific lines of action. The case studies make the case that managing personal health involves accounts of significant learning, the ability to recognize and utilize different types of resources, and applying, in many cases, not only professional, but also folk and popular means of treatment.

Reeve, S. & Bell, P. (2007, April 16). “It has a little bit of fattening in it”: Documenting children’s conceptions of “healthy” and “unhealthy.”Paper presented at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST) 2007 Annual Meeting as part of the session “Connecting Science Learning to Personal Health: Understanding the Influence of Instruction, Family, Social Networks, and Institutions” (Philip Bell, chair), New Orleans, LA.

This paper describes a study in which thirteen fourth and fifth grade children, of diverse ethnic, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, were asked to use a digital camera and small notebook to document the range of things they consider to be healthy and unhealthy. Using open-ended interview questions, the children were then asked to explain each item, including what it was, why they chose it, and why they thought it was either healthy or unhealthy. The range of definitions of “healthy” and “unhealthy” invoked by the children was surprisingly broad, encompassing topics such as illness, proper nutrition, environmental health, and mental health. Findings across all thirteen children are displayed, and a more in-depth case study of one child serves as a detailed example of the types of definitions children ascribe to the words “healthy” and “unhealthy”, as well the type of analyses being employed on these data. The theoretical implications of these results for research on children’s ideas about health, as well as implications for the design of health interventions, are discussed.

Bricker, L. & Bell, P. (2007, April 15). “Um - since I argue for fun, I don’t remember what I argue about”: Using children’s argumentation across social contexts to inform science instruction. Paper presented at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST) 2007 Annual Meeting as part of the session “Bridging Classroom Practices: Traditional and Argumentative Discourse” (Leema Kuhn, chair), New Orleans, LA.

ABSTRACT: In this paper, we report on children’s argumentation across the social contexts of their lives and how we plan to utilize children’s argumentative discourse and practices when designing science instruction. First, we make a case for why we have focused on argumentation as a phenomenon worthy of study. Next, we report on our research endeavors - both a longitudinal ethnographic study of young people’s everyday encounters with science and technology and design-based research utilizing data from the ethnographic portion of the project. We then report on some findings from the ethnographic portion of our study and discuss ways we are planning to utilize these data in the design of classroom science instruction. Specifically, we show how specific linguistic moves - involving discourse marking in everyday arguments - indicate and accomplish scientific knowledge transfer across informal and formal learning environments and across long time scales. Lastly, we discuss the instructional implications of a theoretical and empirical focus on everyday argumentation.

On April 10, 2007, the LIFE Center sponsored a poster session on “Methodological challenges and innovations in studying learning in informal contexts” at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association Meeting in Chicago, IL. The following posters were presented:

Roles in research: Understanding the form and implications of positions that researchers and research subjects employ in a cognitive ethnography
Heather Toomey Zimmerman, Tiffany Lee, Philip Bell, University of Washington

At the family table: Methodological and practical issues of in-home ethnographic research on family finance
Sheldon Levias, Laurie McCarthy, Véronique Mertl, Reed Stevens, University of Washington

Methodological possibilities and issues associated with conducting cognitive ethnography across the social settings of children’s lives
Philip Bell & Carrie Tzou, University of Washington

Accounting for Knowing in Everyday Life - Methodological Approaches
Vera Michalchik, SRI International

Connecting ethnographies and experiments: Methodological and theoretical considerations of coordinating research on metacognition from the lab and from everyday settings
Leah Bricker, Jennifer Amsterlaw, Tiffany Lee, Philip Bell, University of Washington

The People Behind the Numbers: Using qualitative & quantitative methods to characterize family engagement in math
Roy Pea, Lee Martin, Angela Booker, Kristen Pilner Blair, & Shelley Goldman, Stanford University

Technobiographies as a tool for conceptualizing learning across settings and time
Brigid Barron , Caitlin Martin, Lori Takeuchi, Stanford University

Watching Kids’ Play: Methodological Issues Pertaining to the Observation of Young People’s Video Gaming Practices
Tom Satwicz, University of Georgia, Laurie McCarthy, Reed Stevens, University of Washington