SLC Center: The LIFE Center: Learning in Informal and Formal Environments

在非正式和正式的环境中学习（LIFE）中心的目的是通过同时关注内隐，非正式和正式学习来理解和推进人类学习，从而培养可推广的跨学科理论，指导有效的新学习技术和环境的设计。研究者认为，鉴于学习现象的复杂性和可用于研究学习的不同层次的分析，一个转变的学习科学不会通过“照常研究”来实现。“他们的计划是将来自研究传统的专家聚集在一起，这些传统倾向于单独工作，而不是合作。该中心的专业知识涵盖神经生物学，心理学和社会/文化方法，以及通过创新技术和新媒体工具增强人类学习的开创性工作。研究者希望通过有意地将不同传统的主流假设、理论和方法并置，来鼓励富有成效的概念碰撞。这些碰撞旨在激发努力，创造一个连贯的，综合的观点，理论上是合理的，并有明确和深远的影响，提高人们的学习能力。生活中心的一个中心前提是，成功的努力，以了解和推动学习需要同时强调非正式和正式（例如，K-16）学习环境，以及人们学习的内隐方式。基础研究将通过三个交叉和多学科的调查进行。第一股，内隐学习和大脑，将记录学习在大脑中的生命周期，并从经验和建模工作中发现与认知，语言和社会学习领域的内隐学习形式相关的潜在神经过程和原则。第二股，非正式学习，将在非正式环境中进行科学，技术，工程和数学学习的研究，以开发认知，社会，情感和文化层面的全面和协调的帐户，推动校外学习和发展。第三部分，正式学习设计及超越，将进行基于理论的高质量学习环境设计原则的实验研究。链的认知部分的一个主要焦点将涉及理论和转移的措施-进入一个意想不到的设置的技能，知识和处置的能力，使一个问题的结构的意义，定位和使用相关的资源，并反映了一个人的努力，以学习“更聪明地工作。“调查人员还建议启动一系列技术项目，这些项目将与转让方面的理论工作协同进行。这条线将特别强调研究新技术的强大作用。

LIFE abstractThe purpose of the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center it to understand and advance human learning through a simultaneous focus on implicit, informal, and formal learning, thereby cultivating generalizable interdisciplinary theories that guide the design of effective new learning technologies and environments. The investigators argue that, given the complexity of learning phenomena and the disparate levels of analysis that can be used to study learning, a transformed science of learning will not come about by proceeding with "research as usual." Their plan is to bring experts together from research traditions that have tended to work separately rather than collaboratively. The expertise in the Center spans neurobiological, psychological, and social/cultural approaches as well as pioneering work in augmenting human learning through innovative technology and new media tools. The investigators hope to encourage productive conceptual collisions by deliberately juxtaposing the different traditions' prevailing assumptions, theories, and methodologies. These collisions are designed to spark efforts toward creating a coherent, integrated perspective that is theoretically sound and has clear and far-reaching implications for improving people's abilities to learn. A central premise of the LIFE Center is that successful efforts to understand and propel learning require a simultaneous emphasis on informal and formal (e.g., K-16) learning environments, and on the implicit ways in which people learn. The basic research will be conducted through three intersecting and multidisciplinary strands of inquiry. The first strand, Implicit Learning and the Brain, will document learning in the brain over the lifespan and discover from empirical and modeling work the underlying neural processes and principles associated with implicit forms of learning in the domains of cognitive, linguistic, and social learning. The second strand, Informal Learning, will conduct studies of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math learning in informal settings to develop comprehensive and coordinated accounts of the cognitive, social, affective, and cultural dimensions that propel learning and development outside of school. The third strand, Designs for Formal Learning and Beyond, will conduct experimental studies of theory-based principles for the design of high-quality learning environments. A major focus of the cognitive component of the strand will involve theories and measures of transfer -- the ability to enter an unanticipated setting with the skills, knowledge, and dispositions to make sense of the structure of a problem, to locate and use relevant resources, and to reflect on one's efforts so as to learn to "work smarter." The investigators also propose to initiate a line of technology projects that would proceed in concert with the theoretical work on transfer. This strand will place special emphasis on studying powerful roles for new technologies.