From Autism to Expertise: Connecting Neural to Cognitive Understanding of Learning

In work stretching back a decade, evidence has been growing that not only is human knowledge hierarchical, but that dynamic inhibition blocks access to lower level detail, leaving only the global picture. Brain injury, pathology (such as strokes), conditions such as autism, and, now experimental procedures such as trans-cranial magnetic stimulation, allow access to this lower level detail. Sometimes access to this detail can enhance creativity or reveal better solutions to difficult problems.

Human expertise relies heavily on elaborate concept structures, but in some cases can lead to people being blinded by their expertise, in, for example, the Einstellung Effect. Much of our understanding of expertise has come from games such as Chess, but this talk will focus on Go, an equally difficult game for people, but a much more difficult game for computers. By analyzing large number of games online, some surprising characteristics of human cognition have emerged. The appreciation of global structures seems to occur at quite an advanced level, and that distinct transitions appear in the acquisition of expertise. Although the existence of such transitions has been conjectured, obtaining quantitative data of the kind we present has been made possible only through the availability of large numbers of decisions online. The talk will conclude with the implications for other games and the possible education opportunities.

Understanding the conceptual changes required in learning science and mathematics: A cognitive developmental approach and implications for instruction

I will describe my research over the last years designed to describe and explain students’ difficulties in understanding concepts in science and mathematics. More specifically, I will argue that by the time formal instruction starts children have already constructed several relatively coherent explanatory systems or ‘framework theories,’ which are based on their everyday experiences in the context of lay culture. Many scientific and mathematical concepts are however organized within different explanatory theories and their understanding requires major changes in students’ conceptual structures. These conceptual changes are not sudden and stage-like, but happen slowly, through the gradual assimilation of the new information into the initial conceptual structures, creating misconceptions. I will also argue that initial systems of thought are not replaced by more advanced ones but continue to exist and to inhibit access to scientific concepts. The implications of the above for a theory of cognitive development and for learning and instruction will be discussed.

The Temporal Dynamics of Learning: Synchronizing Science with Education

Timing is critical for learning at every level, from learning the precise temporal patterns of speech sounds, to learning appropriate sequences of movements, to optimal training and instructional schedules for learning, to interpreting the streams of social signals that reinforce learning in the classroom. Moreover, a decade of neuroscience research demonstrates that aspects of the temporal dynamics of processes within the brain can predict learning and performance. Scaffolding research from the level of the single neuron to the dynamics of cultural activities has revealed the importance of considering timing as a critical feature of cognition. We believe that by investigating the temporal dynamics of learning we can promote the capacity of children to learn, while aligning the environment to promote learning.

Education and Technology Partnerships as Intercultural Communities: An Ethnographic Perspective

This talk will draw on two ethnographic cases in which teams from different disciplines and institutional settings that were brought together to support the building of technology enabled educational opportunities for learning. Each case will make visible the how and in what ways an ethnographic epistemology made visible not lonely how the teams were assembled but also the interactional and intercultural nature of the work of members of each team that supported, and at times constrain, the design, development, and implementation of innovative technology-enabled projects. The goal in drawing on these two different cases is to make visible a conceptually driven approach to uncovering and understanding the complex and often challenging and dynamic dialogic work of inter-professional, interdisciplinary, and inter-institutional project teams.

The first case, Two Sides of the Interface, makes visible the intercultural learning that resulted from a partnership between teachers and a team building digital archive and its interface that supported by the educational work of teachers and the development work of the team building the digital archive and interface. The second case, The Role of Ethnography in Complex Technology Enabled Education Partnerships, makes visible roles and relationships that were developed to construct an award-winning program that engaged 4000 secondary and post secondary students, in 170 sites in 44 of the 58 counties of California in learning ways of becoming active readers, writers and mathematicians. Through these case studies, I make visible how an Interactional Ethnographic perspective provides a conceptual approach to both research and project development.

Research Ideas Incubation Workshop 1:

Learning at Scale—connecting research on learning across different levels through statistical and computational methods