UD Learning Sciences Month in Review–July

With August well under way, we want to share some news from the Learning Sciences faculty, students, and staff during July. Please check out the links and descriptions below.

Select New Presentations and Publications

Associate Professor Danielle Ford and colleagues presented a poster at the 6th annual Earth Educators Rendezvous. Within, the authors discussed their efforts to transform a large introductory earth sciences course for preservice early childhood and elementary teacher education majors. They shared their successes in reorganizing the curriculum, integrating activity-based pedagogies, and increasing student science content understanding. They also shared their difficulties impacting student motivation and self-efficacy for science teaching. Ford, D., McGeary, S., Gallo-Fox, J., & Ackerman, C. (2020, July). “The world in a river”: Lessons learned while redesigning and researching an introductory earth science course for preservice elementary teachers.

Assistant Professor Christina Areizaga Barbieri published an article in Applied Cognitive Psychology demonstrating that studying and explaining fictitious students’ errors lead to improvements in middle schoolers’ algebraic equation solving. Students with limited conceptual knowledge showed particular benefits in their algebraic feature knowledge. Barbieri, C. A., & Booth, J. L. (2020). Mistakes on display: Incorrect examples refine equation solving and algebraic feature knowledge. Applied Cognitive Psychology.

Professor Roberta Golinkoff presented with colleagues at the Experiments in Linguistic Meaning Conference (ELM) in Philadelphia, PA. Golinkoff, R. M., Singh, L., Goksun, T., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2020, June).  Effects of bilingualism on infants’ sensitivity to ground information. Dr. Golinkoff also published with colleagues in Child Development: Pace, A., Luo, R., Levine, D., Iglesias, A., de Villiers, J., Golinkoff, R. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Wilson, M. S. (2020). Within and across language predictors of word learning processes in dual language learners.

PhD student Caroline Gaudreau, with co-authors Yemimah King, Dr. Rebecca Dore, Hannah Puttre, Dr. Deborah Nichols, Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and Dr. Roberta Golinkoff have published in Frontiers in Psychology. In their article, Preschoolers benefit equally from video chat, pseudo-contingent video, and live book reading: Implications for storytime during COVID-19 and beyond, the authors find that preschool children can comprehend storybooks and even learn new vocabulary words when read to over video chat.

Assistant Professor Teomara (Teya) Rutherford presented with UD colleagues Austin Cory Bart and James Skripchuk at the 4th Educational Data Mining in Computer Science Education (CSEDM) Virtual Workshop. A copy of their presentation paper, Evaluating an Instrumented Python CS1 Course, is available here. Within, they examine how learning analytics from a CS course can provide insight into student learning, persistence of mistakes, and time management. These insights can be fed into course redesign to make improvements to the structure–for example, curriculum pacing.

In late June, Professor Zoubeida R. Dagher presented Negotiating perceived conflict between scientific and religious claims at the Epistemic Insights and Big Questions virtual conference at the University of Oxford. Link to conference program.

New Funded Projects

Professor Nancy Jordan is the PI of two new projects: a four-year National Science Foundation-funded project, Paving the Way for Fractions: Exploring Foundational Concepts in  First Grade, with Co-PIs Nora Newcombe at Temple and Christina Barbieri at UD, and a five-year Institute for Education Sciences-funded project, Examining the Efficacy of a Fraction Sense Intervention Grounded in Principles from the Science of Learning, with Co-PIs Nancy Dyson and Henry May, both at UD. Both projects will provide opportunities for graduate student funding.

Assistant Professor Christina Areizaga Barbieri was awarded a University of Delaware General University Research grant for her project, Targeting Misconceptions to Improve Core Competencies for Students at Risk for Mathematics Difficulties. The project will assess the benefits of two different instructional strategies on elementary school students at risk for mathematics learning difficulties. Her prior work shows that explaining common math errors—called errorful instruction—can improve math learning in general. She will compare this approach to standard instructional practices used with students with learning difficulties. The findings will lead to improved learning opportunities for those who most need them.

Assistant Professor Teomara (Teya) Rutherford was awarded a University of Delaware General University Research grant for her project, Assisting Teachers to Support Positive Student Emotions and Motivation While Using Educational Technology. This two-year project will examine how insight from student emotions and motivations as they play an online mathematics learning game may help teachers support positive student affect and learning.