Learning Sciences PhD program Curriculum Revision Ideas
Goals
- Address PRACTICAL PROBLEMS in teaching and learning, in and out of schools. The Learning Sciences PhD program should plan backwards from careers in academia, educational practice, and industry.
- We need to support our students in finding COHERENCE amidst the interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences.
- Develop a COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE with attention to apprenticeship. Our program should reflect what we know about effective and inclusive learning environments.
Design ideas for meeting these goals
PRACTICAL PROBLEMS
- I think we have a stronger sense of how to prepare our students for academia than we do for careers in industry involving research on learning.
- Do we want to focus on technology development and design? This feels like a top-level question for me, both in terms of our priorities for future hiring and in terms of the kinds of careers for which we aim to prepare students.
- I would be interested in accommodating students with more diverse prior experience by allowing more transfer units from a Master’s program and strongly supporting interdisciplinary coursework if they can be justified in terms of the criteria we have for concentration and research courses (that is, theory, contexts, and design). I know there are economic issues with encouraging our students to take courses out-of-department, but perhaps we could cultivate two-way relationships, making our courses more attractive particularly to grad students in IS, Media Studies, CSE, and perhaps Anthropology.
COHERENCE
- The Concentration/Research unit breakdown seems to work better for PhD programs in K12 disciplinary content areas, where the Concentration courses tend to be focused on math learning, music learning, science learning, etc. At the same time, we probably don’t want to break the unified logic of the CISL requirements. The Research courses seem to be mostly about methods, so perhaps we could structure the Learning Sciences Concentration courses on the Research Apprenticeship course (see next section), and subdivide into theory and contexts.
- We could modify the Research Analysis exam rubric
descriptors (only for Learning Sciences students) to emphasize an
understanding of how an article is situated within the Learning Sciences.
- for theoretical knowledge, situate this study within the disciplines whose intersection describes the Learning Sciences. Articulate the study’s epistemological or theoretical paradigm (e.g. what assumptions does it make?) and why these research questions have been important within that paradigm.
- for methodological knowledge, situate this study’s methods within methodological traditions of the Learning Sciences. The student should consider alternative methodological approaches and what might have been gained or lost.
COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
- A strong cohort model supporting a community of practice and lots of learning opportunities between students at different levels. Because we are moving toward a full-time PhD model, we can be more rigid on the sequence of course requirements.
- I propose we adopt a research apprenticeship model, requiring students to repeatedly enroll (perhaps four semesters total) in a research apprenticeship course, modeled after the Research Apprenticeship Course (RAC) at Penn. Meets bi-weekly for a two-hour lunch meeting; all learning sciences students enroll and attend. One or two faculty members facilitate. RAC is entirely research-focused; usually two or three students will present each meeting, practicing for conference presentations, sharing drafts of conference papers, etc. The agenda is set ahead of time, materials arecirculated ahead of time, and everyone is expected to have read and sent feedback on the meeting’s papers. (For longer papers, ask readers to focus on one or two specified pages with particular questions.) Yasmin Kafai invited me to join Penn’s RAC for the two years that I lived in Philly during my PhD, and I got better feedback on my work from RAC than anywhere else.
- Consider investing in sending students to the Learning Sciences Graduate Student conference, where they will join a broader cohort of LS students across universities. It’s got a great inclusive vibe, and I think it’s strategically positioned to increase the job prospects of students coming out of strong but less-prominent schools.
A concrete proposal
The following courses are required for the PhD. Up to 18 units from a Master’s program can be applied to Concentration and Research courses, if they can be justified, as well as elective credits.
| Credits | Title |
|---|---|
| 3 | LAI 615 Introduction to CISL (first year) |
| 8 | Learning Sciences Research Apprenticeship (must take 4 times) |
| 12 | Concentration:Theory |
| 6 | Concentration:Contexts |
| 21 | Research (Min. 6 credits each: quant, qual, design) |
| 1 | Research Analysis Exam |
| 6 | Practicum |
| 10 | Dissertation |
| 5 | Electives |
| 72 | Total |
Research Apprenticeship course
- LS facuty rotate on teaching this new course.
Concentration:Theory
- LAI 649 Learning Theories (Wang)
- Critical Computational Literacies (Proctor)
- Embodied learning (Flood)
- Sociocultural Theory (Honwad)
Concentration:Contexts
- Learning in informal settings (Abramovich/Honwad)
- Assessment (Abramovich)
- Learning in online worlds (?)
Research: Design
(Quantitative and qualitative courses are already widely-offered)
- Instructional Design (Chang)
- Computational Literacies Design Studio (Proctor)
- Courses cross-listed for the LS Master’s program