I am interested in understanding how people learn through solving complex problems and developing learning environments that support learning through problem-solving-- both technological and nontechnological. As part of this interest, I have done work in middle school science while a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech's EduTech Institute . While at Vanderbilt, I did research examining medical students in problem-based curricula in terms of cognitive outcomes. Understanding how individuals learn through solving complex problems necessitates taking a broad view of learning and problem-solving including self-directed learning, collaboration, strategy and knowledge development, and transfer as well as understanding the endpoints of learnng, expert performance.
My current research involves two lines of research. In the Videocases Online Project: Cognitive Studies of Preservice Teachers project, I collaborate with Sharon Derry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop video cases and activity structures based on learning sciences theories and to study how the cases and activities affect learning.
I have also received an NSF Early CAREER award for the project
Representational Tools to Support
Learning about Complex Biological Systems . In this project I have examined how novices and experts come to understand complex systems such
as the human respiratory system and aquarium ecosystems. I use
structure-behavior-function theory to develop hypermedia and simulation construction
tools that support learning about such systems as part of the RepTools Toolkit.
In prior research, funded by a National Academy of Education Spencer
Foundation postdoctoral fellowship is on Collaborative Ways of Knowing
and involves understanding knowledge construction in a constructivist learning
environment, Problem-based Learning (PBL). I am analyzing the video of a
focusing on how a facilitator supports learning, how students collaboratively
construct knowledge, and the role of representations. Part of this work has been published in the inaugural issue of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning.
While at the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research and Development Center I worked on two projects: