The cyberlearning community in the United States brings computer scientists and learning scientists together to design and study innovative learning technologies. The Cyberlearning Community Report: The State of Cyberlearning and the Future of Learning With Technology highlights examples of the exciting work our community is engaged in as we integrate the latest innovations in learning science and computer science into new research designs and methods. This work is also driving the need for new learning sciences in areas such as embodied cognition, identity, and affect, and requires advances
A majority of Americans rely on general outlets for science news but more say specialty sources get the facts right about science. This report presents findings from a survey conducted among a nationally representative sample of 4000+ adults from May 30-June 12, 2017. The survey asked about a range of issues from how the public encounters science news and assesses what and who to trust to other ways that people engage with science information in everyday life, including participation in citizen science research projects, hobbies, and consumption of entertainment programming built around
Citizen science is public participation in research and scientific endeavors. Different models are proliferating across various disciplines. Citizens volunteer as data collectors in science projects, collaborate with scientific experts on research design, and actively lead and carry out research. The last form of citizen science, in which citizens exert a high degree of control and ownership over scientific activities, tends to be action-oriented, with research conducted to support interventional activities or policy change. We call this form community citizen science, and it can be of
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ramya ChariLuke MatthewsMarjory BlumenthalAmanda EdelmanTherese Jones
Citizen science offers youth and educators unique opportunities to observe and explore the world through authentic research experiences that are necessary for robust STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) learning. STEM learning is key to fostering informed and engaged youth who are ready to tackle the challenges of our future. Our increasingly complex world depends on helping youth cultivate skills needed to think critically and creatively about 21st Century challenges— skills such as observation, communication, and data literacy. STEM gives all students the building blocks for
Most scientists say they got into science to make the world a better place and recognize this means sharing what they learn with a range of other people. But deciding to engage also means deciding what to communicate, and it’s at this stage that things get complicated.
Scientists’ most important communication decision may be figuring out their goals. Do they want to help shape local, state or national policy discussions? Do they want to influence individual behavior, such as diet choices, medical decisions or career paths?
Big-picture goal choice is, however, relatively simple, as it
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TEAM MEMBERS:
John BesleyAnthony DudoShupei Yuan
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This purpose of this review was to identify characteristics common across professional development frameworks within emerging professions (i.e. fields that are not regulated or licensed) and to identify practices and heuristics from those fields that could inform our work. The review began with; 1) creating a protocol for searching for frameworks; 2) identifying criteria for selection of representative frameworks; and 3) developing strategies for recording and sharing content with the research team. From the initial inventory of frameworks, we articulated a set of criteria for selecting a
This poster was presented at 2017 Campus Office of Undergraduate Research Initiatives (COURI) Symposium, El Paso, TX.
One of the principal challenges of the partnership of scientists and high school students are the existent barriers of language between them (Kim & Fortner, 2007). In other words, since scientists are usefully deemed as characters with higher power, status, and knowledge, students may feel nervous or intimidated, especially when scientists speak jargons and complex language. The best educators have a magical way of engaging their audiences with compelling stories. Even the
This poster was presented at 2017 Campus Office of Undergraduate Research Initiatives (COURI) Symposium, El Paso, TX.
Purpose & Problem - According to some existing results identified in the literature, the partnership between high school students and scientist involves several challenges, such as time management, lack of equipment, communication barriers, organization, complexity of the scientific language and scientist availability. The purpose is to address these problems and identify effective ways that can enhance the partnership between the scientist and high school students during
This poster was presented at 2017 Campus Office of Undergraduate Research Initiatives (COURI) Symposium, El Paso, TX.
This study introduces cogenerative dialogues as a pedagogical tool to enhance the communications between students and engineers in a university internship environment. High school student interns worked with engineers for 7 months and were invited to conduct cogenerative dialogues with engineers regularly and discuss any issues, concerns, positives happened in the internship in order to improve their learning experience.
This poster was presented at 2017 Campus Office of Undergraduate Research Initiatives (COURI) Symposium, El Paso, TX. It describes the Work With a Scientist (WWASP) program, in which scientists and high school students engage in co-generative dialogues.
This resource list was produced by the GENIAL (Generating Engagement and New Initiatives for All Latinos) project, which convened Informal Science Learning (ISL) practitioners, community leaders, policymakers, researchers, and others focusing on generating engagement and new initiatives for Latinos.