About the LIFE Center
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding Science of Learning Centers (SLCs) in order to extend the frontiers of knowledge on learning of all types and create the intellectual, organizational, and physical infrastructure needed for the long-term advancement of learning research. The Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center was one of the first four Science of Learning Centers to be funded in the Fall of 2004. LIFE is an interdisciplinary collaboration between learning scientists at the University of Washington, Stanford University, SRI International, and other institutions across the country.
THE LIFE LEADERSHIP TEAM consists of Brigid Barron, Philip Bell, John Bransford, Patricia Kuhl, Andrew Meltzoff, Na’ilah Suad Nasir, Roy Pea, Byron Reeves, William Penuel, Nora Sabelli, Dan Schwartz, Reed Stevens, and Nancy Vye. They are joined by an exceptional group of graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, faculty researchers, and staff in LIFE Center activities.
THE PURPOSE OF THE LIFE CENTER IS to develop and test principles about the social foundations of human learning in informal and formal environments, including how people learn to innovate in contemporary society, with the goal of enhancing human learning from infancy to adulthood.
Our selection of ‘the social foundations of learning’ as LIFE’s Purpose derived from four factors: (a) Center-wide LIFE discussions of our findings with the goal of identifying common principles across diverse settings, domains, and ages, (b) identification of learning features in both informal and formal settings, (c) new advances in related fields, (d) a consensus among LIFE’s scientists that the role of ’social’ in learning is underrepresented in current thinking about the science of learning.
THE MISSION OF THE LIFE CENTER:
LIFE has two Missions that embody what we must do to achieve our Purpose.
LIFE’s Mission 1 is:
To identify and investigate underlying principles of how people learn socially by strategically sampling learning across settings, domains, and ages, and by using multiple methodologies (neurobiological, cognitive, developmental, & socio-cultural) to spark conceptual collisions and syntheses among viewpoints.
This Mission highlights our belief that a truly transformative science of learning requires both strategic sampling across settings, domains, and age of participants, and also involves multiple methodologies that LIFE and its partners can bring to bear on our Purpose. This is where LIFE’s breadth becomes a strength.
LIFE’s Mission 2 is:
To foster research and education collaborations with individual and institutional partners, and to promote qualitative improvements, both theoretical and practical, in our collective capacities for understanding and supporting human learning.
The scope of Missions 1 and 2 is illustrated below in Figure 2. LIFE is systematically working in a number of different environments, and across different ages, in order to provide sufficient variability for problem finding, hypothesis testing, and theory building to address our purpose of investigating the social foundations of learning in informal and formal settings.
Figure 2. Numbers represent strategic LIFE sampling across settings, domains and ages to uncover principles of social foundations, social practices, and social designs in learning.
In Figure 2, each number (1-8) represents one or more LIFE research projects involving settings and ages: (1) learning in infancy; (2) early school-age including formal and informal environments; (3) formal K-12 environments; (4) informal environments for middle school students (e.g., clubs, museums and family homes, and connections across these environments and to schools); (5) community college and college environments; (6) graduate training of pre-service teachers; (7) interdisciplinary training of LIFE graduate students and post-docs; and (8) workplace environments. LIFE researchers are making use of the variability found across these settings to uncover key issues of learning that can easily remain invisible if they are not systematically explored under such variation. LIFE’s sampling of settings, domains, and ages is enhanced by collaborations with a variety of individual and institutional partners, in keeping with the goal expressed by Mission 2. We have a number of successful illustrations of that strategy.
LIFE’s interest in diversity cuts across all of LIFE’s Strategic Driving Questions, but Implementation Unit 7 plays a special role in coordinating our LIFE-wide efforts in this regard. Our aim is to establish LIFE as a center of bi-directional and multi-directional influences-we continue to learn how to fully more utilize LIFE’s partnerships and collaborations to enhance theory building and foster continued collaboration and capacity building.
LIFE’s THREE STRATEGIC DRIVING QUESTIONS
To achieve our Purpose and Mission, LIFE articulated three Strategic Driving Questions that anchor our work in the LIFE Center-these three questions form the platforms on which all of LIFE’s research intersects. They originated from our collective reflections on our Purpose, our research to date, and critical considerations of longstanding issues in the learning sciences. The three questions focus on distinct but related aspects of the issues surrounding ’social factors in learning.’ Answers to these questions will contribute, both independently and together, to advance both theories of learning and the practice of learning.
STRATEGIC DRIVING QUESTION 1: SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS: Are the ’social foundations’ of learning the same or different across domains, contexts, and developmental periods?
STRATEGIC DRIVING QUESTION 2: SOCIAL PRACTICES: What are the barriers, bridges, and social supports for successful transitions between formal and informal learning environments?
STRATEGIC DRIVING QUESTION 3: SOCIAL IN DESIGNS: What needs to change to achieve a better fit between designed learning environments and current knowledge from the science of learning?
In order to achieve our Purpose and Mission, and address our Strategic Driving Questions, LIFE has designed seven Implementation Units that organize the work of the Center. Six of these Implementation Units describe our research for Years 4 and 5 of the LIFE Center, and each contains a section entitled, ‘Future Directions’ that describes the potential for the work for years 6-10 of the LIFE Center. These projections constitute an important part of our strategic planning; not only for Years 6-10, but also for the work we are conducting in Years 4-5. Each of the Implementation Units represents our interdisciplinary, integrated contributions to the science addressing our Strategic Driving Questions. It is worth noting that our presentation of LIFE’s research portfolio in terms of these distinct implementation units may make them look more autonomous than they are in the reality of our practices; these units represent central tendencies in the research described but we are continually planning, conducting and sharing emerging work across these boundaries in our day-to-day activities.
The seventh Implementation Unit (IU) describes our education, collaboration and outreach endeavors. We consider these efforts of the Center to stand alongside our research units because this IU is part of the overall implementation plan necessary to achieve success as a Center. Moreover, Implementation Unit 7 is an integral part of all other Implementation Units-each of them includes elements of education, collaboration, and diversity in their unit, and Unit 7 assures that we are achieving our Center-wide aims in making coordinated progress in these areas. All seven Implementation Units are therefore essential to LIFE’s Purpose and Mission.
IMPLEMENTATION UNIT 1: Assessments and Criteria for Progress and Success in Different Settings
IMPLEMENTATION UNIT 2: Media, Interactivity, and Technology
IMPLEMENTATION UNIT 3: Language, Early Learning, & Neuroplasticity
IMPLEMENTATION UNIT 4: Learning Pathways and the Development of Expertise
IMPLEMENTATION UNIT 5: Developmental Social Cognition, Identity, & Learning
IMPLEMENTATION UNIT 6: Collective Learning, Networks, and Innovation
IMPLEMENTATION UNIT 7: Synthesis Incubator: Research on Education, Collaborations and Outreach Networks (RECON)
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