RESOURCE: New Graduation Rate Resource

Here's a beta version of a new online mapping tool to help the public, policymakers, and educational leaders understand the high school graduation crisis... web site» tool» article»

RESOURCE: Scratch - With simplified code, programming becomes child's play

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web... article» web site»

RESOURCE: Recommended Fieldwork & Analysis Equipment for Video-based Ethnographic Research

My research has been conducting a video-based, team ethnography over the past two years. Because people have been asking about what equipment we use in our work, we've written up a brief technical report on the choices we've made and a bit about what we've learned... more» report»

RESOURCE: Audio Gear for Rich Media

I'll post our list of field recording equipment in a later article, but here's a nice summary of equipment and software that can be used to capture quality audio recordings... more»

RESOURCE: The National Science Digital Library

NSDL is the U.S. online library for education and research in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. more»

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTS: Interactive Physics Simulations

From the Physics Education Technology Team, here are a range of educational simulations focused on the learning of physics. more»

STUDY: Putting action in perspective

Embodied approaches to cognition propose that our own actions influence our understanding of the world. Do other people's actions also have this influence? There seems to be a tendency to adopt the actor's perspective when attention is drawn to specific actions being performed. more»

ARTICLE: News from the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center

A better understanding of the role that timing plays in human learning could lead to improved teaching techniques and alter the trajectories of countless human lives... news» center web site»

CLASSIC: Practical Thinking at Work (LCHC Newsletter, 1984)

Bridging the gap between lab and field, here are a range of early reports presented in newsletter format of core studies associated with the "practical thinking" perspective -- a precursor to everyday and distributed cognition... more»

BOOK: Navigating Numeracies: Home/School Numeracy Practices

This volume approaches numeracy as a social practice with ethnographic work on the meanings and uses of numeracy in schools and home and community contexts... more»

RESEARCH GROUP: Early Algebra, Early Arithmetic

This project has the view that present-day curricula underestimate, by a long shot, the learning capabilities of students. They feel that the best way to show this, and to pave the way to major reform in mathematics education, is to set up a research basis that we and others can learn from... more» publications»

STUDY: New Computer Model Predicts Crowd Behavior

Since you can't arrange an angry mob experimentally, why not try to simulate them and the resulting dynamics... more»

BOOK: The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies

"The Difference" is about how we think in groups--and how our collective wisdom exceeds the sum of its parts. Diversity wins out over homogeneity... more»
Why can teams of people find better solutions than brilliant individuals working alone? And why are the best group decisions and predictions those that draw upon the very qualities that make each of us unique? The answers lie in diversity--not what we look like outside, but what we look like within, our distinct tools and abilities."The Difference" reveals that progress and innovation may depend less on lone thinkers with enormous IQs than on diverse people working together and capitalizing on their individuality.

NEW JOURNAL: Mind, Brain, and Education

This journal will promote the integration of the diverse disciplines that investigate human learning and development -- to bring together education, biology, and cognitive science to form the new field of mind, brain, and education. more»
Human beings are unique in their ability to learn through schooling and diverse kinds of cultural instruction. Education plays a key role in cultural transformations: It allows members of a society, the young in particular, to efficiently acquire an ever-evolving body of knowledge and skills that took thousands of years to invent. It is time for education, biology, and cognitive science to join together to create a new science and practice of learning and development.

CONSENSUS REPORT: Learning In and Out of School in Diverse Environments

Banks-Learning-In-Out-of-School.jpgThis new report summarizes important principles that educational practitioners, policy makers, and researchers can use to build upon the learning that occurs in the homes and community cultures of students from diverse groups...

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PRINCIPLE 1: Learning is situated in broad socio-economic and historical contexts and is mediated by local cultural practices and perspectives.

PRINCIPLE 2: Learning takes place not only in school but also in the multiple contexts and valued practices of everyday lives across the life span.

PRINCIPLE 3: All learners need multiple sources of support from a variety of institutions to promote their personal and intellectual development.

PRINCIPLE 4: Learning is facilitated when learners are encouraged to use their home and community language resources as a basis for expanding their linguistic repertoires.

ARTICLE: Bots on The Ground

Humans have long displayed an uncanny ability to make emotional connections with their manufactured helpmates. People frequently treat machines they come to depend upon as "sort of alive." more»

PAPER: Pointing as Situated Practice

Gesture is bound up in becoming an expert. One way that people learn to see as a professional through pointing... more»

BROADCAST: Gestures help learning

Turns out that hand gestures are important for the learning of science subjects... more» book»

MICRO-REVIEW: Meaning and Memory in Gesture

"Perhaps gestures contain meaning, displaying the mind at work or perhaps they help us produce speech more effectively. Either way gestures are not just useless by-products of some other process, but provide vital support for our communicative abilities..." more»

ARTICLE: Beginning the Journey: Five-Year-Olds Drive Their Own PBL Projects

Project-based learning ties nicely into role play dimensions of early development. "Student-driven projects, enhanced by technology, launch kindergartners on their way to lifelong learning..." more»

CLASSIC: Certainty and the Public Understanding of Science: Science on Television

In this paper, Collins shows us how mainstream science documentaries systematically avoid revealing the 'window of uncertainty' that is a cornerstone of the epistemic practice of science. It is little wonder that the images of science held by the public are at odds with the practical dimensions of actual scientific work... more»