REU Site: The Temporal Dynamics of Learning

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SummaryThe faculty and researchers in the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (TDLC) at the University of California, San Diego, host this REU Site in the Temporal Dynamics of Learning. The overall aim of the site is to provide each participating undergraduate student a research experience that leads to publishable work in a new interdisciplinary area studying the role of time and timing in learning, at multiple time and spatial scales, from the scale of synapses operating at the millisecond timescale up to the scale of teachers and students interacting over months. This award gives REU students access to all of the facilities and activities of the Center, including a state-of-the-art motion capture/brain dynamics facility, regular meetings of research networks composed of highly interdisciplinary and collaborative faculty, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduate researchers from more than ten institutions in the US, Canada, and Australia, and a yearly All Hands Meeting where they are encouraged to present their work. The Center's research projects are highly collaborative, and fit into a larger set of goals that together will create a new science of the Temporal Dynamics of Learning. In addition to the training REU students receive in the individual laboratories, extensive professional development opportunities are provided through workshops, an undergraduate research conference, panel discussions, and GRE preparation courses.Intellectual MeritThe intellectual merit of this proposal is the advancement of a new science of the Temporal Dynamics of Learning through undergraduate research experiences in highly productive laboratories, and training in collaborative, rather than competitive, research. This REU Site functions as an undergraduate research arm of the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (TDLC), an NSF-sponsored Science of Learning Center. The goal of this REU Site is to train undergraduates to perform research at the highest level as part of the center's primary mission of developing a new science of the temporal dynamics of learning. This Center is uniquely organized as a network of four research networks, each of which has strong representation at UCSD. The students thus become embedded in a network of senior scientists, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and current undergraduate researchers, affording them opportunities to experience highly collaborative and highly interdisciplinary science.Broader Impacts Approximately one third of the students in this REU Site program are under-represented minorities recruited from local community colleges (as it is a school-year program), resulting in the training of a diverse group of future scientists advancing the science of learning from multiple perspectives. This REU program taps into established working relationships with these institutions in order to ensure an adequate applicant pool from their honors programs, and use recommendations by their professors so that a well-qualified and diverse group of students are enrolled. The PI-team believes that this REU site provides opportunities and research experiences for the students that cannot be had anywhere else. The broader impacts of this site include breaking down of traditional disciplinary boundaries as well as boradening participation of under-served and under-represented communities.