The Learning Sciences: Past, Present, and Future

1
The Learning Sciences Past, Present, and Future

• Janet L. Kolodner
• School of Interactive Computing
• Georgia Inst. Of Tech.

2
What is a learning scientist, and what do
learning scientists do?

• Harvest our best understandings of learning to
  design software and environments and ways of
  educating that promote deep and lasting learning
• Study the environments we create to learn more
  about learning and promoting learning

3
Related to but different from activities of lots
of other communities

• AI Education -- driven by capabilities of AI
  technology
• Cognitive Science -- focus on studies of
  cognition
• Science Education Math Education etc. -- focus
  on teaching and learning in disciplines
• Instructional/Educational Technology -- focus on
  productivity

4
What is/are the Learning Sciences?

• interdisciplinary pursuit of
• understanding what learning for use looks like
  -- developmental trajectories, manifestations of
  different gradations of understanding and
  capability
• understanding ways of promoting deep and lasting
  learning of skills, practices, content, and
  dispositions in the classroom, on the job,
  informally, and as part of life-long learning
  endeavors in person and at a distance
• understanding environments (small and large) in
  which people learn well and in which we want them
  to learn
• design of software, activity structures,
  curriculum materials, environments, teacher prof.
  dev., ... to promote such learning
• focus on learners and their needs

5
Some of my favorites

• Ann Browns Design Experiments paper
• Jeremy Roschelles paper on Convergent Conceptual
  Change (early 90s) Tim Koschmanns revisit of
  that data (late 2000s)
• Danny Edelsons analysis of the
  CoVis/Worldwatcher evolution
• A decade of publications about transfer
• AERA session (2000?) on learning from design
• Special issues of JLS on learning from problem
  solving and on design studies
• Gresalfis JLS paper on developing dispositions
• Nailah Nasirs talks and papers on identity
  development
• A session at 2010 ICLS on bridging learning
  across formal and informal learning environments

6
One science or many?Foundations and Methodologies

• Rooted in cognitive, socio-cognitive, and
  cultural approaches to learning -- learner as a
  social animal who is part of a community (and
  learns by active construction of mental models)
• Focuses on examining learning in vivo -- with
  all the messiness that involves and requiring
  methodologies that can nonetheless extract trends
  and descriptions
• Belief that technology can help promote learning,
  BUT it needs to be designed and integrated
  carefully taking the needs of the learners and
  whole social system and environment into account
• Belief that we have to work with practitioners as
  part of our research
• Design as an important research methodology

7
Learning Scientists have developed shared goals
and beliefs

• Learning is not just about content it includes
  becoming -- helping people to grow in
  capabilities and awareness and disposition (which
  includes learning content)
• We want people to have the understanding,
  capabilities, and disposition to participate as
  informed citizens in our democracy and to thrive
  and contribute to our knowledge society
• School is only one environment for learning
• By understanding successful learning in natural
  environments, well be able to effect learning in
  designed ones

8
Which has led to some shared beliefs about the
best learning environments

• E.g., from communities of practice and cognitive
  apprenticeship literatures
• Knowledge societies where informed decision
  making is valued and practices of inquiry and
  knowledge building are practiced
• Communities of practice where participants have
  the chance to be legitimate participants, first
  peripherally and gradually more completely
• Experts in these environments are committed to
  enculturating new members and helping them become
  more expert participants

9
And some working models

• Fostering communities of learners
• Brown and Campione
• Knowledge Building Communities
• Scardamalia and Bereiter
• Learning by Design Project-Based Inquiry Science
• Kolodner, Starr, Krajcik, Edelson, Reiser,
• Design-based kindergarden
• Mioduser and Levy
• Each project began with foundations from theories
  of how people learn and continued to both
• Use that understanding to promote learning better
• Contribute back to that theoretical foundation
• As more was learned, each has evolved in some
  very sophisticated ways

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What kind of science?

• A design science
• An integration science
• A cognitive science (and a social science)
• A descriptive science
• An experimental science
• A creative science
• With the huge strengths and distinctions of
  carrying out basic research that addresses a
  real-world need and of imagining technologys
  affordances
• and methodologies that can contribute to both
  theory and practice at the same time

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Includes folks in

• Science education
• Educational technology/ learning technology
• Educational psychology developmental psychology
  cognitive psychology
• Cognitive science
• Computer science -- HCI, AI,
• Information science
• Anthropology
• Targeted disciplines (science, math, history, )
• Plus
• Experts with target populations
• Experts at targetted learning environments
• And includes a lot of folks educated as Learning
  Scientists

12
Past The first decade (1990s)

• Careful descriptions of learning (Chi, Schauble,
  Ng)
• Computational models of learning (Hammond, Ram,
  Pazzani, Burstein, Van Lehn, Roschelle)
• Creating methodology (special issue Schoenfeld
  -- dealing with messy data design experiment --
  Ann Brown)
• Software proposals, descriptions, evaluations
  (Schank, Fergusson, Reiser)
• Classroom studies (Roseberry, Fernandez,
  Scardamalia, Williams)

13
Present The past decade (2000s)

• Dealing with complexity
• Methodology -- design experiments and design
  studies mature
• Understanding complex systems (as a disciplinary
  focus)
• Diversity
• A focus on systems (in classrooms, in teacher
  education, in promoting reform)
• What does it/can it/should it look like?
• Aiming for transferable learning
• Software-realized scaffolding -- principles for
  design
• Bring back a new kind of modeling?
• New technologies
• Methodology
• Lab experiments and cognitive models mostly
  dropped out
• classroom studies, careful descriptions, software
  design, integration, and eval are still in
• curriculum design was added

14
Future the 2010s

• Personal platforms for learning
• Integrating technologies
• Interactive etextbooks
• Construction/expression workbenches
• Their integration
• Promoting sustained engagement through attention
  to popular culture
• Citizen science
• Do it yourself
• Serious games

15
The Future (continued)

• Bridging learning in formal and informal learning
  environments
• More project and problem-based learning, more
  knowledge building, more communities-of-practice-l
  ike culture in classrooms
• Possible because of new ways of doing teacher
  professional development
• Taking advantage of opportunities in the
  community and beyond
• Linking assessment and learning
• To promote needs-based promotion of mastery
• Large-scale collection and analysis of learning
  data (Educational data mining to link assessment
  and learning
• Transforming Education Making real change

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From Research to Transformation

• Implementation research research into issues of
  implementation and sustainability (may also learn
  about learning and promoting learning from the
  efforts)
• Vigorous program of taking some selected software
  national -- working out sustainability issues and
  integration into the curriculum issues
• Efforts need to be organized so implementation
  researchers and more traditional learning
  scientists work together and learn from each
  other.
• Organizations that know how to do these things or
  can make them happen need to be brought into the
  effort and possibly created

17
From Research to Transformation (continued)

• New players new collaborations e.g.,
• Research on educating public policy makers
• Research on educating the public about learning
  and education
• Apply what we know about learning to teachers
  (just like kids, they need to be passionate to
  want to learn, they need to concretely experience
  and reflect on targeted skills, practices, and
  content, )
• Making time for real teacher professional
  development
• Large-scale implementation projects

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Implications for educating the next generation of
learning scientists

• About people -- as learners, collaborators,
  thinkers, speakers, players, users of tools,
  members of communities,
• About learning environments -- classrooms,
  workplaces, museums, parks, on-line communities,
  .
• About technology
• About methodologies for assessment -- that get at
  depth of learning and at degree of capabilities
  quantitative and qualitative
• About methodologies for data collection -- that
  take complexities of learning and learning
  environments into account
• About design and integration -- of technology,
  curriculum, learning environments, communities
• About some content area(s)
• Some need to also know about policy and economics

19
Special Issues

• Methodology -- messy data (1992 1994-5 2001
  2004)
• Computer Support for Collaborative Learning
  (1993)
• Goal-Based Scenarios (1994)
• Collaborative learning -- including gesture
  (1996)
• Conceptual change (1997)
• Authoring tools (1998)
• Learning through problem solving (1998)
• Learning through designing (2000)
• The role of designed artifacts in math learning
  (2002)
• Scaffolding (2004)

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2003Areas of Focus/ Areas of Need

• Technology design and integration
• Curriculum design activity structure design
• Collaborative learning and CSCL
• How people learn (and dont) -- at different
  ages, in different kinds of situations -- trends,
  individual differences, what it looks like, what
  effects it
• Methodologies for assessment, data collection,
  and analysis
• Methodologies for design
• Teacher professional development school reform
  (teachers as learners schools as learning
  communities)
• Understanding complex systems (e.g., evolving
  from what we have)