- My research has been focused on the cognitive sciences, in particular cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and in recent years education.edit
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We argue that failure can play a productive role in students' creative knowledge-construction process. As evidence, we present a fine-grained analysis of a whole-class theory-building discussion with 8th grade students. The goal of the... more
We argue that failure can play a productive role in students' creative knowledge-construction process. As evidence, we present a fine-grained analysis of a whole-class theory-building discussion with 8th grade students. The goal of the discussion was to construct a theoretical account for why a glass of cold milk warmed quickly at first and then more slowly as it approached room temperature. Though they initially produced scientifically non-normative explanations, by the end of the discussion the class had refined their ideas into an explanation of difference drives rate – a relationship at the heart of Newton's law of heating and other equilibration phenomena. The students' flawed initial explanations were productive in the knowledge-construction process, as the raw material they ultimately refined into a more scientific explanation. We argue that the theory-building discussion supported both creative and critical thinking and that this pedagogical approach has the power, more generally, to leverage failure productively for science learning.
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There have been a series of innovations over the time since our species first appeared on earth that have enabled people to work together more and more effectively. The first great innovation was the development of trade, which enabled... more
There have been a series of innovations over the time since our species first appeared on earth that have enabled people to work together more and more effectively. The first great innovation was the development of trade, which enabled people to specialize in their occupations, and thereby refine their ideas and skills to be more productive. The next great innovation was the development of cities, which brought people together in close proximity, where they could share ideas and learn from each other. The invention of writing later made it possible for ideas to spread across greater distances and to later generations. The invention of the printing press greatly enhanced the spread of ideas and led to the development of mass education. The development of the world wide scientific community created a community working together to develop new ideas, new methods of investigation, and new tools for uncovering the way the world operates. Now we are experiencing a blossoming of mass collaboration, because of the invention of the Internet. This has spawned a wide variety of new capabilities to enable mass collaboration, such as web communities, collaboratories, digital libraries, crowdsourcing, MOOCs, and collaborative enterprises. These innovations have profound implications for both society and education Mass collaboration involves people working either together or separately, and sharing ideas to advance society. Sometimes they are pursuing common goals and sometimes they are pursuing individual goals, but even in the latter case, their individual efforts may lead to benefits for the whole society. For example, a few people working on Wikipedia are clearly focused on making it the most accurate and informative resource possible. But most others are pursuing their individual goals of providing information about some topic they care about, or making sure what is written is grammatically correct. Wikipedia provides a platform where people with different goals and interests can work separately, while contributing to the greater good. In this way it enables mass collaboration to take place. But for mass collaboration to occur, most participants must actively work to improve the information in Wikipedia. Our goal in the paper is to show how different innovations over history have provided new ways for societies to engage in mass collaboration. For a media-centric view of this history, see Figure 1 in Fischer (this volume). Origins of Mass Collaboration I date the beginning of mass collaboration to the evolution of our species, but some might date it back even further to the development of cultural evolution. Cultural evolution got started when sentient animals started passing on their ways of knowing
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In classrooms and homes, dialogue has always taken place in groups of people gathered at the same time in the same place. But with the advent of computer technology, people are communicating with one another by texting and e-mail;... more
In classrooms and homes, dialogue has always taken place in groups of people gathered at the same time in the same place. But with the advent of computer technology, people are communicating with one another by texting and e-mail; participating in chat rooms, forums, or Web communities; and posting on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. It seems as if
many youth would rather interact over the Internet than talk face-to-face. Many of these new kinds of conversations are in fact learning conversations. As a society, we need to think about the implications of this transformation for education more generally.
It is worth considering some of the characteristics and effects of these new forms of dialogue. For good or ill, they will inevitably change what people learn and how people learn. It is important to take them seriously if we are to design learning environments that are effective for the new generation of digital children growing up in our midst.
many youth would rather interact over the Internet than talk face-to-face. Many of these new kinds of conversations are in fact learning conversations. As a society, we need to think about the implications of this transformation for education more generally.
It is worth considering some of the characteristics and effects of these new forms of dialogue. For good or ill, they will inevitably change what people learn and how people learn. It is important to take them seriously if we are to design learning environments that are effective for the new generation of digital children growing up in our midst.
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Throughout most of history, teaching and learning have been based on apprenticeship. Children learned how to speak, grow crops, construct furniture, and make clothes. But they didn’t go to school to learn these things; instead, adults in... more
Throughout most of history, teaching and learning have been based on apprenticeship. Children learned how to speak, grow crops, construct furniture, and make clothes. But they didn’t go to school to learn these things; instead, adults in their family and in their communities showed them how, and helped them do it. Even in modern societies, we learn some important things through apprenticeship: we learn our first language from our families, employees learn critical skills on the job, and scientists learn how to conduct world-class research by working side-by-side with senior scientists as part of their doctoral training. But for most other kinds of knowledge, schooling has replaced apprenticeship. Apprenticeship requires a very small teacher-to-learner ratio and this is not realistic in the large educational systems of modern industrial economies.
If there were some way to tap into the power of apprenticeship, without incurring the large costs associated with hiring a teacher for every two or three students, it could be a powerful way to improve schools. In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers at the intersection of education and new computer technology were studying how this new technology could help to transform schooling. In a series of articles we explored how to provide students with apprenticeship-like experiences, providing the type of close attention and immediate response that has always been associated with apprenticeship.
If there were some way to tap into the power of apprenticeship, without incurring the large costs associated with hiring a teacher for every two or three students, it could be a powerful way to improve schools. In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers at the intersection of education and new computer technology were studying how this new technology could help to transform schooling. In a series of articles we explored how to provide students with apprenticeship-like experiences, providing the type of close attention and immediate response that has always been associated with apprenticeship.
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The goal of communities of learners (CoL) models is to foster deep disciplinary understanding -- -- an understanding of both subject matter and the ways the disciplinary community works with knowledge in a domain. Through working... more
The goal of communities of learners (CoL) models is to foster deep disciplinary understanding --
-- an understanding of both subject matter and the ways the disciplinary community works with
knowledge in a domain. Through working collectively to carry out investigations, learners
develop the agency and social capacities necessary for creatively working with knowledge. Such
models require teachers and students to engage in new modes of inquiry that tend to be very
different from the ways in which learning and teaching occur in more traditional classrooms. In
fact, we have previously described this type of educational model as a “radical
reconceptualization of educational practice” (Bielaczyc & Collins, 1999). Similarly, Bereiter
(2002) claims “Students need to be socialized into the world of work with knowledge, and that is
an even more radical cultural change than becoming ‘digital’” (p. 220). Thus, we believe that
one of the greatest challenges facing the implementation of CoL models concerns how to support
the change processes that teachers and their students must move through.
The intention of this chapter is to collect together what has been learned in the
educational community and in our own work with teachers concerning how to cultivate a
community of learners. We discuss both key theoretical underpinnings (design principles,
epistemology and an understanding of how students learn) along with five key changes in the
classroom that we believe provide the most transformational leverage in bringing CoL’s to life in
K-12 classrooms.
-- an understanding of both subject matter and the ways the disciplinary community works with
knowledge in a domain. Through working collectively to carry out investigations, learners
develop the agency and social capacities necessary for creatively working with knowledge. Such
models require teachers and students to engage in new modes of inquiry that tend to be very
different from the ways in which learning and teaching occur in more traditional classrooms. In
fact, we have previously described this type of educational model as a “radical
reconceptualization of educational practice” (Bielaczyc & Collins, 1999). Similarly, Bereiter
(2002) claims “Students need to be socialized into the world of work with knowledge, and that is
an even more radical cultural change than becoming ‘digital’” (p. 220). Thus, we believe that
one of the greatest challenges facing the implementation of CoL models concerns how to support
the change processes that teachers and their students must move through.
The intention of this chapter is to collect together what has been learned in the
educational community and in our own work with teachers concerning how to cultivate a
community of learners. We discuss both key theoretical underpinnings (design principles,
epistemology and an understanding of how students learn) along with five key changes in the
classroom that we believe provide the most transformational leverage in bringing CoL’s to life in
K-12 classrooms.
Today, more and more students are acquiring knowledge and skills outside of school, and yet traditional schools still have a virtual monopoly on certifying whether a student’s knowledge is sufficient. Adults and children are taking online... more
Today, more and more students are acquiring knowledge and skills outside of school, and yet traditional schools still have a virtual monopoly on certifying whether a student’s knowledge is sufficient. Adults and children are taking online courses, working with remote human or computer-based tutors and participating in online communities with a focus on learning. But if they fail to enroll in a school or college to complete their degree requirements, these plugged-in learners often receive little credit for their accomplishments. This commentary in Education Week proposes a national alternative certification system for students
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If we want to improve science education, it is important to understand how scientists actually go about constructing their theories and models to make sense of the world. In order to understand this process, I conducted an empirical study... more
If we want to improve science education, it is important to understand how scientists actually go about constructing their theories and models to make sense of the world. In order to understand this process, I conducted an empirical study of three expert scientists and an historian trying to construct theories to address a set of four difficult problems posed to them. This was an exploratory study where the four experts recorded their thinking and made notes to represent their current theories. It was designed to identify the strategies and concepts they were using to construct their theories. To analyze the data, I read through the recorded comments and analyzed the notes to determine the most salient concepts and strategies they were using to construct their theories. While the concepts and strategies used clearly depended on the particular experts and problems, the protocols were very revealing as to the processes that scientists use to construct their theories.
In this article we outline a theory of scientific meta-knowledge, which is built around four critical aspects of science. We refer to the four types of meta-knowledge that are needed as (1) meta-theoretic knowledge, (2) meta-questioning... more
In this article we outline a theory of scientific meta-knowledge, which is built around four critical aspects of science. We refer to the four types of meta-knowledge that are needed as (1) meta-theoretic knowledge, (2) meta-questioning knowledge, (3) meta-investigation knowledge, and (4) meta-analytic knowledge. While numerous investigators, working in the philosophy of science, cognitive science, and science education, have developed theories about various aspects of the nature of science, there have been few attempts to provided detailed models that explicate all four of these components, along with an elaboration of how they work together in scientific inquiry. This has resulted in science curricula that provide students and teachers with impoverished views of the nature of science.
This paper is our attempt to provide a more comprehensive and integrated overview of what science curricula should aspire to teach about the nature and processes of scientific inquiry and modeling. Our Inquiry Island and Web of Inquiry learning environments and science curricula, which engage young students in theory-based empirical research projects, provide first steps toward putting this vision into practice.
This paper is our attempt to provide a more comprehensive and integrated overview of what science curricula should aspire to teach about the nature and processes of scientific inquiry and modeling. Our Inquiry Island and Web of Inquiry learning environments and science curricula, which engage young students in theory-based empirical research projects, provide first steps toward putting this vision into practice.
This paper draws upon a recent book (Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology) to summarize a number of prospects and challenges arising from the appropriation of digital technology into learning and educational practice. Tensions... more
This paper draws upon a recent book (Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology) to summarize a number of prospects and challenges arising from the appropriation of digital technology into learning and educational practice. Tensions between traditional models of schooling and the affordances of digital media were noted, while the promise of these technologies for shaping a new system of education was reviewed. It was argued that new technology brings radical opportunities but also significant challenges. The urgency of seeking a coherent model for the future of education in a technological age was stressed.
This paper describes the characteristics of communities in history that have shown great creativity. It then describes how these characteristics are fostered by Scardamalia and Bereiter's Knowledge Forum, and how these elements played out... more
This paper describes the characteristics of communities in history that have shown great creativity. It then describes how these characteristics are fostered by Scardamalia and Bereiter's Knowledge Forum, and how these elements played out in an American middle school.
The term “design experiments” was introduced in 1992, in articles by Ann Brown (1992) and Allan Collins (1992). Design experiments were developed as a way to carry out formative research to test and refine educational designs based on... more
The term “design experiments” was introduced in 1992, in articles by Ann Brown (1992) and Allan Collins (1992). Design experiments were developed as a way to carry out formative research to test and refine educational designs based on principles derived from prior research. More recently the term design research has been applied to this kind of work. In this article, we outline the goals of design research and how it is related to other methodologies.We illustrate how design research is carried out with two very different examples. And we provide guidelines for how design research can best be carried out in the future.
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As a broader array of communication tools is developed, designers of learning environments need a better understanding of what kinds of communication each medium is best suited for. Each of the new media have different affordances and... more
As a broader array of communication tools is developed, designers of learning environments need a better understanding of what kinds of communication each medium is best suited for. Each of the new media have different affordances and constraints. One of our principles for the design of learning environments is “Render unto each medium what it does best.” This paper is an attempt to state some of what we know about what different media are good for.
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In recent years in America there has developed a “learning-communities” approach to education. In a learning community the goal is to advance the collective knowledge and in that way to support the growth of individual knowledge. The... more
In recent years in America there has developed a “learning-communities” approach to education. In a learning community the goal is to advance the collective knowledge and in that way to support the growth of individual knowledge. The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning, in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. There are four characteristics that such a culture must have: (1) diversity of expertise among its members, who are valued for their contributions and given support to develop, (2) a shared objective of continually advancing the collective knowledge and skills, (3) an emphasis on learning how to learn, and (4) mechanisms for sharing what is learned. If a learning community is presented with a problem, then the learning community can bring its collective knowledge to bear on the problem. It is not necessary that each member assimilate everything that the community knows, but each should know who within the community has relevant expertise to address any problem. This is a radical departure from the traditional view of schooling, with its emphasis on individual knowledge and performance, and the expectation that students will acquire the same body of knowledge at the same time.
Cognition and learning are central concepts in educational psychology. Research on these topics has been productive both for advancing fundamental scientific understanding and for informing educational practice. In this chapter, we... more
Cognition and learning are central concepts in educational psychology. Research on these topics has been productive both for advancing fundamental scientific understanding and for informing educational practice. In this chapter, we review research accomplishments that have influenced the character of educational practice significantly. We also review research that has important practical implications, but that has only begun to inform practices of education.
In designing any learning environment, there are a number of tradeoffs that a designer should consider. The paper discusses a large number of these tradeoffs and the issues that should be considered in making design decisions with respect... more
In designing any learning environment, there are a number of tradeoffs that a designer should consider. The paper discusses a large number of these tradeoffs and the issues that should be considered in making design decisions with respect to each tradeoff. The framework developed is directed toward developing a new kind of instructional design theory for constructivist learning environments.
Epistemic forms are target structures that guide inquiry. Epistemic games are general purpose strategies for analyzing phenomena in order to fill out a particular episternic form. The article describes in detail the rules and moves for... more
Epistemic forms are target structures that guide inquiry. Epistemic games are general purpose strategies for analyzing phenomena in order to fill out a particular episternic form. The article describes in detail the rules and moves for one epistemic game and briefly describes a catalog of epistemic games that are used to analyze phenomena in terms of their structure, function, or processes.
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When a technology becomes widespread, whether it is the book, the automobile, or television, it has ramifications throughout society, including education. For example, the invention of the printing press and the book had profound effects... more
When a technology becomes widespread, whether it is the book, the automobile, or television, it has ramifications throughout society, including education. For example, the invention of the printing press and the book had profound effects on education. It made the ideas of universal literacy and public schooling possible, and led to a deemphasis in teaching the art of memory. The automobile and bus led to the consolidation of rural schools and the dispersion of people to the suburbs, and in turn to the split between urban and suburban education, and busing to achieve racial integration. Television and video technology is even now having profound effects on education, such as the decline of print culture and the rise of a visual culture, low tolerance for boredom, and the loss of innocence for children . Similarly the computer and the electronic network are likely to have profound impacts on education, and it behooves us to consider these as we think about the issue of restructuring schools.
In ancient times, teaching and learning were accomplished through apprenticeship: We taught our children how to speak, grow crops, craft cabinets, or tailor clothes by showing them how and by helping them do it. Apprenticeship was the... more
In ancient times, teaching and learning were accomplished through apprenticeship: We taught our children how to speak, grow crops, craft cabinets, or tailor clothes by showing them how and by helping them do it. Apprenticeship was the vehicle for transmitting the knowledge required for expert practice in fields from painting and sculpting to medicine and law. It was the natural way to learn. In modern times, apprenticeship has largely been replaced by formal schooling, except in children’s learning of language, in some aspects of graduate education, and in on-the-job training. We propose an alternative model of instruction that is accessible within the framework of the typical American classroom. It is a model of instruction that goes back to apprenticeship but incorporates elements of schooling. We call this model "cognitive apprenticeship" (Collins,
Brown, and Newman, 1989).
Brown, and Newman, 1989).
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The differences between schooling and apprenticeship are many, but for us one is most important. In school skills and knowledge have been abstracted from their uses in the world. In apprenticeship they are instrumental to the... more
The differences between schooling and apprenticeship are many, but for us one is most important. In school skills and knowledge have been abstracted from their uses in the world. In apprenticeship they are instrumental to the accomplishment of meaningful tasks.This difference is not academic: it has implications for the nature of the knowledge that learners acquire. This chapter attempts to elucidate some of the implications through a proposal for adapting apprenticeship methods for the learning of cognitive skills.
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Many teaching practices implicitly assume that conceptual knowledge can be abstracted from the situations in which it is learned and used. This article argues that this assumption inevitably limits the effectiveness of such practices.... more
Many teaching practices implicitly assume that conceptual knowledge can be abstracted from the situations in which it is learned and used. This article argues that this assumption inevitably limits the effectiveness of such practices. Drawing on recent research into cognition as it is manifest in everyday activity, we argue that knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is developed and used. We discuss how this view of knowledge affects our understanding of learning, and we note that conventional schooling too often ignores the influence of school culture on what is learned in school. As an alternative to conventional practices, we propose cognitive apprenticeship, which honors the situated nature of knowledge. We examine two examples of mathematics instruction that exhibit certain key features of this approach to teaching.
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Our concern in this paper is with the validity of educational tests when they are employed as critical measures of educational outcomes in a dynamic system. The problem of validity arises if an educational system adapts itself to the... more
Our concern in this paper is with the validity of educational tests when they are employed as critical measures of educational outcomes in a dynamic system. The problem of validity arises if an educational system adapts itself to the characteristics of the outcome measures. We introduce the concept of systemically valid tests as ones that induce curricular and instructional changes in education systems (and learning strategy changes in students) that foster the development of cognitive traits that the tests are designed to measure. We analyze some general characteristics that contribute to or detract from a testing system's systemic validity, such as the use of direct rather than indirect assessment. We then apply these characteristics in developing a set of design principles for creating testing systems that are systemically valid. Finally, we provide an illustration of the proposed principles, by applying them to the design of a student assessment system. This design example addresses not only specifications for the tests, but also the means teaching the process of assessment to users of the system.
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This paper presents a core theory of human plausible reasoning based on people's answers to everyday questions about the world. The theory consists of three parts: 1) a formal representation of plausible inference patterns such as... more
This paper presents a core theory of human plausible reasoning based on people's answers to everyday questions about the world. The theory consists of three parts: 1) a formal representation of plausible inference patterns such as deductions and inductions, 2) a set of parameters such as conditional likelihood and typicality, and 3) a system relating the different inference patterns and the different certainty parameters. This is one of the first attempts to construct a formal theory that addresses both the semantic and parametric aspects of the kind of everyday reasoning that pervades all of human discourse.
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Analogies are powerful ways to understand how things work in a new domain. We think this is because analogies enable people to construct a structure-mapping that carries across the way the components in a system interact . This allows... more
Analogies are powerful ways to understand how things work in a new domain. We think this is because analogies enable people to construct a structure-mapping that carries across the way the components in a system interact . This allows people to create new mental models that they can then run to generate predictions about what should happen in various situations in the real world . This paper shows how analogies can be used to
construct models of evaporation and how two subjects used such models to reason about evaporation .
construct models of evaporation and how two subjects used such models to reason about evaporation .
We have been studying transcripts of a variety of interactive teachers. The teachers all use some form of the case, inquiry, or Socratic method. The topics range over different domains. But we have abstracted common elements of their... more
We have been studying transcripts of a variety of interactive teachers. The teachers all use some form of the case, inquiry, or Socratic method. The topics range over different domains. But we have abstracted common elements of their teaching strategies. In this way it is possible to identify the most effective techniques that each of these teachers has discovered, so that they can be made available to anyone who wants to apply these techniques in their teaching.
In order to study how people construct and revise models of a text, we gave subjects five difficult-to-understand texts and recorded protocols of the processing they went through to make sense of the texts. The results indicated that... more
In order to study how people construct and revise models of a text, we gave subjects five difficult-to-understand texts and recorded protocols of the processing they went through to make sense of the texts. The results indicated that skilled readers use a variety of strategies for revising and evaluating different models, finally converging on a model that best accounts for the events described in the text. These strategies concern the ways that skilled readers deal with the difficulties that arise in comprehension. By making these strategies explicit, we can possibly provide less skilled readers with strategies for what to do when they don't understand a text.
This paper presents a spreading-activation theory of human semantic processing, which can be applied to a wide range of recent experimental results. The theory is based on Quillian's theory of semantic memory search and semantic... more
This paper presents a spreading-activation theory of human semantic processing, which can be applied to a wide range of recent experimental results. The theory is based on Quillian's theory of semantic memory search and semantic preparation, or priming. In conjunction with this, several of the miscondeptions concerning Qullian's theory are discussed. A number of additional assumptions are proposed for his theory in order to apply it to recent experiments. The present paper shows how the extended theory can account for results of several production experiments by Loftus, Juola and Atkinson's multiple-category experiment, Conrad's sentence-verification experiments, and several categorization experiments on the effect of semantic relatedness and typicality by Holyoak and Glass, Rips, Shoben, and Smith, and Rosch. The paper also provides a critique of the Smith, Shoben, and Rips model for categorization judgments.
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To ascertain the truth of a sentence such as "A canary can fly," people utilize long-term memory. Consider two possible organizations for that memory. First, people might store with each bird that flies (e.g., canary) the fact that it can... more
To ascertain the truth of a sentence such as "A canary can fly," people utilize long-term memory. Consider two possible organizations for that memory. First, people might store with each bird that flies (e.g., canary) the fact that it can fly. An alternative organization would be to store only the generalization that birds can fly, and to infer that "A canary can fly" from the fact that a canary is a bird and birds can fly. The latter organization is much more economical in terms of storage space but should require longer retrieval times when an inference is necessary. The results of a true-false reaction-time task were found to support the latter hypothesis about memory organization.