PI: Jianwei Zhang
SUNY at Albany
Award Details

The Learning Sciences is an interdisciplinary field that draws on multiple theoretical perspectives and research paradigms, with the goal of advancing knowledge and the application of knowledge about human learning and development in formal and informal educational settings. Within the context of an international research community, it is essential to support the best young US scholars to be able to share their ideas and learn from the community, especially since junior scholars are most likely to struggle with the costs of participation. This proposal supports participation of US students and postdoctoral scholars in the Doctoral Consortium and Early Career Workshop at the annual meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences, which in 2015 is the Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Conference, to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden. Organizing the workshops in conjunction with the flagship conferences in the field gives the workshop participants further access to new research, other researchers in the field and prospective employers, and revitalizes the community with fresh faces and ideas.

Researchers in the learning sciences attempt to understand the nature and conditions of learning, cognition, development, and related areas of human performance, and they investigate cognition in its material, social, and cultural contexts. The intention of learning science research is to develop evidence-based claims about how people learn that have theoretical, practical, and pedagogical implications. Capacity building is a central concern within the Learning Sciences community. The International Society for the Learning Sciences has historically addressed these needs, in part, through specialized workshops held in conjunction with the Society’s two major conferences, with multilateral financial support from regional research funders in the US, the EU, and Asia/Pacific regions. The Doctoral Consortium workshops host PhD students who are grappling with their dissertation research, while the Early Career workshops are designed for recent PhDs (post-docs, faculty in early tenure track, and others) who are shaping career paths. This grant provides travel support to US scholars selected through a competitive application process to participate in these events. Their work is presented for feedback in the context of the events with feedback from an international panel of expert mentors, and published in the proceedings of the conference.