Overview

2. Overview • Major advances in the learning sciences over past several decades • Powerful interactive learning environments are building on these developments • Defining and tackling the challenges of scaleup and sustainability • How advances in computing and communications are creating exciting opportunities to address needs • An emerging nexus of technology advances, learning sciences and educational policy

3. Revolutionary advances in sciences of learning • National Academy of Sciences “How People Learn” (1999) • The nature of expertise • Development of concepts and reasoning abilities • New pedagogies for deep learning of complex subjects • Roles of teacher learning • New assessment approaches for higher standards • Powerful roles for effective use of technologies

4. Aspects of the sciences of learning • The knowledge-intensive nature of expertise • Expertise is not simply general abilities nor use of general strategies • Experts’ extensive knowledge affects what they notice and how they organize, represent, and interpret information in their environments • Expert knowledge organized in large coherent frameworks • Experts notice features and meaningful information patterns unnoticed by novices • Expert knowledge reflects contexts of application--it is not reducible to isolated facts • Expert knowledge does not guarantee pedagogical knowledge

5. The importance of representational competencies for expertise • Expertise often involves the skillful creation, use, and interpretation of symbolic expressions (written language, mathematical equations, graphs, technical diagrams, proofs, computer programs) • Experts have greater meta-representational proficiencies than novices—knowing which representational forms are most suitable for asking and answering specific kinds of questions • Experts have facile understanding of the mappings between different representational forms (e.g., algebraic functions to graphs or numerical tables) • Experts are able to assemble arguments, designs, theories, and other complex artefacts that are subject to challenge and testing in a community of peers

6. The development of concepts and reasoning abilities • Young children rapidly come to make sense of number, language, and causality • In their efforts to make sense of the world, children form robust conceptions that may conflict with the formal knowledge that is later taught (e.g., intuitive physics) • The development of metacognition is a crucial aspect of acquiring expertise and becomes a strategic competency for learning: • Knowledge about one’s knowledge and its limits • Control knowledge about thinking and learning: planning, monitoring, and revising one’s efforts

7. Contextual and cultural influences on learning • Participation in social practices is a crucial form of learning outside school and in school • The broad diversity of social practices in different cultural contexts creates special challenges for engaging students’ prior knowledge in school • Learning is promoted by social norms that value a search for understanding • Learning is assisted by the family and social environment in which activities provide opportunity for learning through participation

8. From learning sciences theory to learning environment design • Not a simple translation • Physics constrains but does not dictate bridge design (Herbert Simon) • The field of the learning sciences is raising important questions and inquiries: • Rethinking what is taught • Rethinking how it is taught for understanding • Reframing how learning is appropriately assessed • Powerful examples of Interactive Learning Environments (ILEs) that build on our understandings from the sciences of learning • SimCalc’s MathWorlds • The Knowledge Integration Environment • WorldWatcher: Scientific visualizations for global investigations • Cognitive tutoring systems

9. SimCalc: Democratizing access to the Mathematics of Change Enable all students to develop full understanding and practical skills with the Mathematics of Change and Variation, including fundamental concepts of calculus As early as Grades 5-8—against a backdrop of ~10% taking High School Calculus, 1.5% taking AP Calculus Collaborators: • Jim Kaput (U. Mass, Dartmouth) • Jeremy Roschelle (SRI International) • Ricardo Nemirovsky (TERC) • Rutgers-Newark; Syracuse; San Diego USI How can technologies and engaging learning activities change the experiential nature of the Mathematics of Change and Variation by tapping more deeply into students’ cognitive, linguistic, and kinesthetic resources? Target: Age: Who: Learning sciences Questions:

10. 1970’s 1980’s 1990’s Compute within a symbol system New Big Three Multiple linked representations (formulas, graphs, numerical tables) One-way serial links (e.g., function plots graph) MBL/CBL: Physical data collection and symbolic representation SimCalc: Co-evolution of technology and MCV curriculum Source: Kaput, NCTM 2000

11. words words Coordinate graphs Symbolic formulas Numerical tables Coordinate graphs Symbolic formulas Numerical tables RATES TOTALS PHENOMENA MBL/LBM MBL/LBM Physical Cybernetic Abstract Source: Kaput, NCTM 2000 The “New Big 3” for Learning the Mathematics of Change and Variation

12. SimCalc: Co-evolution of MCV curriculum and technology • Curriculum: With technology use in activities of predicting, comparing, designing, build on student experiences with • physical change (motions, seasons, aging, growth, flows) • symbolic change (smaller numbers, steeper curves) • Advanced topics: • Connections between variable rates and acculumation • Velocity, acceleration, limits • Contextualizes other mathematical topics such as: • Slope, rate,ratio, proportion • Areas of geometric figures

13. Example of a SimCalc activity

14. SimCalc outcomes • Technology linkages between experiential phenomena and mathematical representations become conceptually linked in student’s mathematical competencies. • After a three-month supplementary course in MCV using MathWorlds, students from the most troubled high school in Newark NJ achieved near-ceiling effects on assessment items that challenge university calculus students • Testing low-SES school mainstream Grade 6-10 students indicated higher levels of performance after MCV coursework than high-SES Gr 11-12 students taught traditional calculus. They…. • Relate slope of position graph to speed of a motion and to the corresponding velocity graph • Infer total distance covered, given by velocity graph, demonstrating accumulation of area under a curve

15. Now and Future SimCalc • MathWorlds implementation in Java (Roschelle, SRI International) • Incorporation of Java MathWorlds in ESCOT project testbed of interoperable middle school math components • TERC’s LBM (“Line Becomes Motion”): • To incorporate kinesthetic experience, students use mathematical functions created on a computer to control physical devices (like motorized toycars) • MathWorlds commercially available in Flash ROM on TI-83Plus graphing calculators (Fall ‘99) and PCs (Key Curriculum Press, Fall 2000) • Massive teacher development with NJ and Mass SSIs and San Diego USI; T-Cubed workshops run by TI

16. KIE: Knowledge Integration Environment Target: Age: Who: Learning sciences issues: • To promote coherent knowledge integration in science learning that is reflectively and critically used (versus unconnected facts and beliefs) • Middle to high school sciences • Marcia Linn, Jim Slotta, et al (UC Berkeley) and diverse scientist partners and organizations • Expertise involves connected ideas and models used for reasoning. • Do learners develop more integrated understanding and models when they engage in meaningful collaborative projects using technologies that support key cognitive and social aspects of scientific inquiry and “make thinking visible”?

17. KIE Technology • KIE is a client-side front-end to the World-Wide Web where student project activities are supported by: • SenseMaker: software that ‘scaffolds’ thinking and the organization of critically-considered evidence in scientific argument • KIE Project units • An associated KIE Evidence Database • Mildred the Cow Guide: a provider of reflect process prompts (what to do next and how) • SpeakEasy: net forum for project participants to share issues • Written reflections and class discussions

18. KIE Curriculum • Student teams work with and/or create scientific evidence in three kinds of supplementary units (2 days to 2 weeks long) • Theory comparison projects (e.g., dinosaur extinction, life on Mars) • Design projects (e.g., an energy-efficient home in the desert using scientific principles) • Critique project (e.g., science tabloid claims on energy conversion) • Scientist partners (e,g., NASA Ames): • Post web evidence for pre-college science teachers • Suggest debates, critiques, or design projects for learners • Mentor students using personal web pages

19. KIE Outcomes • Students can be effectively encouraged to integrate their knowledge through simple prompts for reflection on their ideas (Mildred the Cow) • Students can develop well-formulated scientific arguments • Net-based discussions enable more students to voice their ideas about the science, especially girls • Major improvements in integrated understanding of project topics such as light, heat, temperature, and sound

20. KIE Now and Future • Many of KIE’s nearly 20 projects have been classroom-tested • KIE has become WISE (Web-Based Integrated Science Environment) • …and has spawned Project SCOPE: Science Controversies On-Line: Partnerships in Education • New NSF-funded effort (UC Berkeley, SCIENCE magazine, U. Washington) • Will develop ‘controversy communities’ of scientists and science learners, focusing on controversies that concern leading research scientists and also connect to citizen interests, e.g., • World-wide control of malaria • Evidence for life on mars • Deformed frogs (environmental chemical or parasite?)

21. WorldWatcher: Scientific visualizations for global inquiry Students at all grade levels and in every domain of science should have the opportunity to use scientific inquiry and develop the ability to think and act in ways associated with inquiry… (National Science Education Standards, National Research Council, 1996, p. 105) • Using visual reasoning for pattern perception in inquiries involving complex data sets • CoVis and later WorldWatcher global warming curriculum as examples • Who: Daniel Edelson (Northwestern U), Roy Pea, Douglas Gordin (now at SRI International) • The multi-agency GLOBE Project coordinated by NSF provides another example

22. A visualization of temperature data for the Northern Hemisphere displayed by Transform, a powerful, general-purpose visualization environment widely used by scientific researchers

23. A visualization window from the WorldWatcher software displaying surface temperature for January 1987.

24. The interface to the library of energy balance data in the WorldWatcher global warming curriculum

25. A tenth grade student’s hand-drawn visualization of global temperature for July (Edelson, Gordin, & Pea, J. Learning Sciences, 1999.

26. Questions about visualization • For what domains are visualizations particularly crucial for promoting understanding? • How does the use of these visualizations influence mental imagery and reasoning in problem solving both while using and when without access to the computer-generated visualizations? • How do how these representations ease the tasks of understanding and using knowledge about the conceptual systems they depict? • We need an empirical science of representational design for understanding complexity, not only capturing and displaying it.

27. Intelligent tutoring environments Target: Age: Who: Learning sciences questions • Better and more efficient learning of well-structured domains: algebra I, geometry, algebra II, college algebra • Middle school to remedial college • Pittsburgh Advanced Cognitive Tutor Center (Koedinger, Anderson, Corbett); new NSF research center (CIRCLE) • Cognitive Tutors conjoin a research base from cognitive psychology (ACT-R) and artificial intelligence with curriculum content in mathematics from math educators • Key tenets of theory: • Learning by doing, not listening or watching • Production rules represent performance knowledge • Units are modular, so isolate skills, concepts, strategies • Units are context-specific, so address when as well as how • In search of “2-sigma effect” where human tutors excel over classroom instruction by two standard deviations (Bloom, 1984)

28. What cognitive tutors do • Provide a cognitive model that incorporates different strategies and typical student misconceptions • Provide model tracing that follows a student through their individual approach to a problem (context-sensitivity) • Uses knowledge tracing to assess student knowledge growth through graded levels of competence, and adaptively select activities for learning (“just-in-time” assistance in reasoning) • PUMP algebra tutor provides 1 standard deviation improvement: • Results after 3 years of replicated studies of urban school use in Pittsburgh and Milwaukee indicate increases of 15-25% on standardized tests (SAT subtest, Iowa) and 50%-100% better on problem solving and representation use measures. • Students highly motivated, reduce embarrassment, and succeed • Teachers are able to shift their attention and support to struggling students

29. New volume on Learning Research and Educational Practice (Bransford and Pellegrino, Co-Chairs) The view from research to practice • Too much like Saul Steinberg’s famous New Yorker poster of Manhattan…...“Everyone knows about the advances in the learning sciences” • Really? • These advances are too rarely reflected in educational practices.

30. Linear flow model The usual means of knowledge transfer through “dissemination” has rarely worked for bringing research to bear broadly on practice* * Source: 1999 NAS report on “Bridging Learning Research and Educational Practices”

31. Reciprocity-of-influence model * Source: 1999 NAS report on “Bridging Learning Research and Educational Practices”

32. Defining the challenges of scaleup and sustainability • Most studies with designs of interactive learning environments informed by the sciences of learning are: • Small-scale efforts • Not sustained • Common problem of “lethal mutation” of innovations • Cultural and linguistic diversity of school environments • Importance of attention to standards, accountability, assessment at a local level • Teacher professional development • Marketplace issues: from prototypes to sustainable products and services with needed support

33. Scaling of innovations • The successes of learning technology innovations are typically accompanied by “researcher hothouse effects” • Common problem of “lethal mutation” of innovations (Ann Brown) • Why? Teachers are designers! • Teachers continue to design curricula in their classroom uses and local adaptations (four phases of curricula) • Need to localize for success rarely supported by teachers’ understanding of the design rationale for why the innovation has its features and practices • Cultural and linguistic diversity of school environments

34. Standards, accountability, assessment • Curriculum practices are strongly driven by systems of accountability and assessment • Standards provide an important common language for expected outcomes • Educators need usable and compelling forms of assessment in tandem with innovative curricula and technologies for learning • Performance and portfolio assessments are making headway as more meaningful guides to progress

35. Teacher professional development • Teacher Professional Development (TPD) is a critical component of all education reform efforts • Formal TPD approaches (e.g., summer institutes, collaboratives) can offer motivating, collaborative learning experiences but find it hard to: • scale to large numbers • sustain collaboration back at teachers’ home sites • provide cost- and time-effective support through the change process • tailor content to local school, district initiatives • build infrastructure for sustainable TPD (and reform) systems • Difficulties confirmed in evaluation of NSF’s SSI TPD work

36. Evaluation of NSF’s SSI TPD efforts* • Most states provided limited TPD time and the SSIs typically supplemented formal TPD activities with less than 1 week a year • No SSI had resources to reach all teachers needing TPD—only a minority • Follow-up procedures require many opportunities for assistance, feedback, and reflection in coaching, meeting with others involved in the process or other connections with colleagues • Intros of new practices require time for discussion, questioning, risk-free practice, sharing and reflection, revision • Interaction with colleagues very important, since teachers often work in isolation and lack opportunities to observe others, share their expertise and experience, or practice new techniques. • Good TPD helps build learning communities within, among, and beyond schools (Source: Corcoran, Shields and Zucker, SRI International, March 1998)

37. The research-commerce culture divide • Marketplace issues: from prototypes to products and services with necessary support • Two cultures: different audiences, purposes, pressures • The divide may narrow as…. • Research greets complexities of practice • Grant agencies seek scale and sustainability • Companies seek innovations and to leverage external research • New models for public-private partnerships will need to evolve (beyond “technology transfer”)

38. Tackling the challenges of scaleup and sustainability • A design research orientation • With partnership models that can work in bringing together necessary expertise and realism to scaleable learning improvements • With networked improvement communities that seek to augment collective intelligence for some purpose and develop sustainable solutions

39. A Design Research Focus • Design research • Challenges the traditional basic-applied science distinction • Embraces situational complexity and works to manage it through to solutions, and reflect them as cases • “Learning engineering”: Iterative design over multiple generations of a research-guided intervention to improve learning

40. The need for partnership models • Tackling design research toward scaleable models • Brief examples: • SCOPE: Science Controversies On-Line: Partnerships in Education (UC Berkeley and SCIENCE magazine) • LeTUS “design circles” of middle school science teachers, curriculum and assessment experts, learning researchers, technology developers (Northwestern and Chicago Schools; U. Michigan and Detroit Schools)

41. Networked improvement communities • Communities that seek to augment collective intelligence for some purpose using the net: • ESCOT integration teams • TAPPED IN and ongoing teacher professional development • CILT and industry alliance program • Infrastructure is coming together for schools, homes

42. ESCOT is a digital library of linkable component tools and a community of teachers, researchers & developers creating, improving, and testing these technologies in real classrooms with real curricula • Principal Investigators: Jeremy Roschelle, Roy Pea, Chris Digiano, Jim Kaput

43. Towards a digital library of re-usable components for middle-school mathematics • ‘Best of class’ graphs, tables, calculators, dynamic geometry, simulations, … 100 or so core elements • Enable plug and play, mix and match • Linked multiple representations and other core educational features • Key ESCOT Partners: • SRI International • Key Curriculum Press (Geometer’s Sketchpad) • The Show Me Center, University of Missouri • Swarthmore (MathForum), • University of Colorado, Boulder (AgentSheets) • University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (SimCalc)

44. ESCOT Integration Teams put components together • Teacher: Pedagogical Design • Developer: Component Design • Web facilitator: Web Design (& teamwork)

45. It’s the right time • Java: a common platform • XML: integration glue • Web: coordinate distributed work • Standards (e.g IMS) • Labelling for search (metadata) • Plug & play, mix match • Linked representations

46. Web-based teacher professional development (TPD) environment designed with easy-to-understand ‘virtual conference center’ metaphor (‘social computing’ research) • Multi-user, chat, and shared Web browsing • Supports use of assessment and curriculum development tools • Significant growth and demand • Over 3,400 registered users, 14 partnership organizations (as unmarketed R&D) • Technical plans for enabling large-scale implementations • Strong brand identity and evangelists • NY Times “How to get the most from computers in the classroom” • Highlighted in US Dept of Education’s ”What works” • Working with LA Unified and state of Kentucky in major reform plans • Funding by National Science Foundation private foundations, “tenants,” and corporate sponsorship (Sun Microsystems)

47. Room description goes here...

48. Concord Consortium Introducing CILT • Roy Pea (SRI), Marcia Linn (UC Berkeley), John Bransford (Vanderbilt), Barbara Means (SRI), Bob Tinker (Concord Consortium)

49. C I L T Center for Innovative Learning Technologies • A distributed center for advancing LT R&D • MISSION: • To serve as a national resource for stimulating research on innovative, technology-enabled solutions to critical problems in K-14 learning in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. • Open structure with annual workshops for harvesting knowledge and leveraging diverse efforts • Working on “theme teams” of high-priority led by 2-3 senior researchers and a post-doctoral scholar • Visualization and Modeling • Ubiquitous Computing • Community Tools • Assessments for Learning

50. CILT’s Industry Alliance Program • How we are working on the research-commerce divide through industry alliances • Intel’s senior partnership with CILT community • Texas Instruments and hand-held learning environments • Palm Computer sponsorship of CILT educational software design competition