PhD Program in Learning Sciences and Technology Design (LSTD)

The PhD program in Learning Sciences and Technology Design (LSTD) began in fall 2002. Its goal is preparing students with expertise in designing and studying technology- enhanced learning environments. It is expected that graduates of the program will take leadership positions in four main areas: as faculty, research scientists in universities and companies, designers and evaluators of formal and informal learning environments, and learning technology policymakers.

Educational technology research at Stanford advances basic knowledge while producing a multitude of practical applications.

FIG. 1: SUSE Professor Deanne Pérez-Granados leads the Robotic Pets project, which focuses on how preschoolers understand and interact with the SONY-created robotic dog, Aibo. A larger issue surrounding her research is how computational technologies affect children’s cognitive and emotional life.

Professor Roy Pea directs the new LSTD doctoral program, which includes core SUSE faculty members Professors Brigid Barron, Shelley Goldman, James Greeno, Michael Kamil, Deanne Pérez-Granados, Daniel Schwartz, and Decker Walker. Many other faculty within SUSE and in other campus departments – especially computer science, communications, psychology, linguistics, and engineering– also contribute in various ways to this highly interdisciplinary program.

As of September 2002, the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning (SCIL) resides in Wallenberg Hall, a showcase building with frontier technology, learning, and research spaces located in the front of Stanford’s Quad.
Photo: Renee Burgard.





Students in the program gain core knowledge in the learning sciences and also develop advanced technical proficiencies, such as programming, computer animation, graphics or industrial design, simulation modeling, video production,museum display, or user experience (the sum total of a computer user’s interactions and perceptions). Second- and third-year students participate in research apprenticeships linked to their areas of interest. The LSTD program offers students an impressive array of learning resources, with its closest ties to two interdisciplinary centers at Stanford: the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning (SCIL) (see more detail on right); and the Center for the Study of Language Information, where researchers study the nature of information and how it is manipulated through the use of language and computation.

Other research and education programs on the Stanford campus affiliated with LSTD include Media-X, a university-corporate collaborative network which links research about people with the study and design of interactive technology, and the Program in Human-Computer Interaction. Nearby Silicon Valley offers participants access to state-of-the art developments in technology, as well as numerous opportunities for research apprenticeships. A monthly SCIL lecture series, Special Interest Groups (SIGS) sponsored by SCIL, and regular SUSE brownbag seminars provide additional venues to discuss issues about the learning sciences and technological innovations.

In addition to the new LSTD program, SUSE also continues to offer its well respected master’s program in Learning, Design and Technology (LDT).This innovative, one-year program was started in 1997 to develop new and better ways to use information technology in learning. It prepares students for entry-level positions as designers of technology-based learning materials and environments.The curriculum integrates theory and practice by combining courses and seminars with projects and a nine-month internship, where students get hands-on experience in schools, agencies, or corporations.

Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning (SCIL)

The presence of the new,multidisciplinary Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning (http://scil.stanford.edu) greatly enriches learning opportunities for LSTD students. SCIL was established in 2002 as an independent center where researchers conduct scholarly research and related activities that advance the sciences, technologies, and practices supporting learning and teaching. Stanford faculty and students from many schools and departments collaborate on SCIL programs and projects,since complex learning issues are by their very nature multidisciplinary.

Various SUSE faculty members’ research activities are based at SCIL, and many LSTD students work alongside SCIL faculty on apprenticeship projects.SUSE faculty member and LSTD program director,Roy Pea, is SCIL’s co-director (with Professor Stig Hagstrom, former director of Stanford’s Center for Materials Research). Pea’s holding both positions ensures coordination and collaboration between the two initiatives.

“SCIL is about researching and inventing the future of learning,” explains Pea.“SCIL research projects are intended to advance the sciences, technologies, and practices that support learning and teaching. One thing that sets it apart from other research centers is its focus on the spectrum of formal education from early childhood through post-secondary education.”

The center encompasses six main areas of research:visualization and modeling, low-cost computing using wireless devices,multimedia research, assessment an devaluation models, on-line learning communities,learning environments design, and improving teaching practices and classroom learning. SCIL resides in Wallenberg Hall, a newly renovated building that was part of the original Stanford Quad, and which contains highly innovative technology, learning, and research spaces (http://scil.stanford.edu/about/wallenberg.html).

FIG. 2: SCIL’s DIVER software, developed by Roy Pea and his research team, provides new capabilities for easily “diving” into video records of teachers and students to analyze and reflect on the details of instructional interactions and peer interactions, and share them on the web.


Examples of Educational Technology Research

Examples of Educational Technology Research What is most remarkable about SCIL is the innovative,cutting-edge nature of its research. For example,Professor Daniel Schwartz leads the Teachable Agents project, which has been tested experimentally at schools including Palo Alto High. Explains Schwartz,“Teachable Agents are educational computer programs with a twist: Students teach the computer rather than the other way around.The technology is exploring the wisdom that people learn best by teaching others.”

One teachable agent Schwartz has developed is called Betty’s Brain, which helps students learn about biology.“In one study, for example, college students taught Betty about weight loss by drawing what is often called a concept map. Once taught, Betty could answer questions that the students asked, and she showed her reasoning using the concept map she had been taught. Students using Betty learned much more than students who simply wrote a summary of a chapter on weight loss.” Schwartz also points out that students enjoy teaching and sharing their agents with one another. He adds,“It is nice to be working on a break-the-mold, effective educational technology that students also happen to love.”

As with most SCIL research projects, the LSTD students who collaborate on Teachable Agents bring their knowledge of computer science, pedagogy, and learning research to help design and evaluate the agents.

Says Schwartz,“The opportunity to work and learn with people from different areas of scholarship and experience is one of the most exciting aspects of SCIL and the new LSTD program.”

Professor Brigid Barron, together with Professor Eric Roberts of Stanford’s Computer Science (CS) Department, is leading another SCIL initiative that contains both theoretical and practical components. The Bermuda Computing Curriculum Project, initiated in 1999, is a collaboration between SUSE, CS, and the Bermuda Public Schools, with the goal of addressing issues of equity by introducing all students to computer science.

"Our project-based curriculum helps students build the technological fluency needed to meet their own goals, to continue learning on their own, and to go on to higher education. Over several courses students are introduced to the history of computer science, web-site creation, programming, the future of computing, and to social issues such as the digital divide. Our goal is to position students to invent and create with technology, as well as critique it," explains Barron.

Students from CS as well as from LSTD and LDT have been central to the project’s work in curriculum development, teacher training, and research. The research examines learning and motivational outcomes for male and female students with differing amounts of prior experience with technology. In addition, students’ course taking patterns across the four years of high school and their educational trajectories post high school will be studied.

Barron, along with LSTD students, will also continue the research on equity and learning experiences across the diverse regions of Silicon Valley in a new National Science Foundation project enabled by a prestigious Early Career Award. Links between socioeconomic status, gender, ethnic background and learning opportunities will be studied and experiments will be carried out to examine how experience influences learning and motivation.

A very different type of project at SCIL is DIVER, which stands for Digital Interactive Video Exploration and Reflection. DIVER enables non experts to embed audiovisual commentary, called DIVEs, into digital videos (see Fig. 2). Leaders Roy Pea and Michael Mills (the latter is a former principal scientist at Apple Computer) describe it as "making a movie within a movie and adding text comments to create a virtual tour.This unique video view may be shared as simply as email." DIVER is being used for both research and teacher learning. Captured records of effective teaching practices and the DIVEs on these video files, which can be shared on websites for peers or mentors, offer numerous possibilities for teacher education and professional development.

Advanced use of DIVER also enables a panoramic camera capture of classroom activities.With access to 360-degree horizontal records, an analyst of a classroom can be a "virtual videographer," making a movie after the fact that can pan and zoom to any place in the room .Teachers can analyze lessons and learn from what they may not have seen while teaching.