Difference between revisions of "PSLC GradStudents"

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== Announcements==
 
== Announcements==
  
1)  '''''iSLC 2011''''' - March 25th-27th, 2011 in Washington DC
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1)  '''NSF Site Visit''':  October 5-6, 2011
  
If you are interested in attending the 2011 inter-Science of Learning Center Young Researchers Conference, please e-mail Colleen Davy (cdavy1@andrew.cmu.edu) by '''November 15th''' and let her knowThe information about the conference is below:
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PSLC will be having its site visit with representatives from the National Science Foundation on Wednesday and Thursday October 5th and 6th.   
  
''What?''  The iSLC conference brings together graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from the six NSF-funded Science of Learning Centers to share their research, network, and potentially form collaborations with people from other centers.   
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This visit is a pretty big deal, as it allows the PSLC to justify its existence to NSF and prove to them that they should keep funding us.  For the next few years at least.   
  
''When?'' March 25-27th, 2011
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I don't think we have a finalized schedule yet, but please try to set aside as much time on those few days to come and listen to the presentations.  We like to have a good showing from the grad students.  
  
''Where?''  Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.
 
  
The theme of this year's conference is "Researching Communication and Communicating Research".  The overarching goals include:
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In particular, there are two events that everyone involved in the PSLC should attempt to go to:
  
# To highlight the use of language and socio-communicative factors in learning.  This could include a) how people learn languages, b) how language knowledge and use affects learning, or c) how communication and social interactions can influence how people learnOther fields of research of course will also be welcome.
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a. ''The Graduate Student/Post-Doc SWOT analysis- October 6th from 10:50-11:50am; location TBA''
# To share our secrets of communicating and collaborating with others- learners, teachers, and other researchers included.   
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*Each year the grads and post-docs are asked to do an analysis of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of the PSLCThe first 10-15 minutes of this, Dan Belenky will be presenting our official listThe rest of the time will be open discussion with the NSF visitors about our position as grad studentsThis is a great opportunity to voice your concerns (or hear your concerns voiced) and to get feedback on how to go about affecting change.   
#  To teach the other centers about the research done at other centers, and to introduce the other centers to the "language" used by that center in conducting research.   
 
  
So basically, if you study communication in any of its myriad forms, or if you just like communicating with others, this may be a great opportunity!
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b.  "Poster Session- October 5th from 1:10-2:10pm; final location TBA"
 
 
2) ** IMPORTANT **
 
 
 
At the April 2011 PSLC Graduate Student Lunch Meeting we will
 
* select a graduate student representative to the executive committee
 
* select a new grad student lunch planner
 
* discuss ideas for a certificate in learning sciences
 
  
 
3) PSLC grads are now responsible for keeping the [http://www.learnlab.org/research/wiki/index.php/PSLC_People#Graduate_Students List of PSLC Grads] up to date.  
 
3) PSLC grads are now responsible for keeping the [http://www.learnlab.org/research/wiki/index.php/PSLC_People#Graduate_Students List of PSLC Grads] up to date.  

Revision as of 18:10, 23 September 2011

The purpose of this page is to serve as a repository of information relevant for grad students. We hope to maintain this page as a repository of current and relevant information for graduate students currently affiliated with the PSLC, as well as grad students who hope to be in the PSLC.

Announcements

1) NSF Site Visit: October 5-6, 2011

PSLC will be having its site visit with representatives from the National Science Foundation on Wednesday and Thursday October 5th and 6th.

This visit is a pretty big deal, as it allows the PSLC to justify its existence to NSF and prove to them that they should keep funding us. For the next few years at least.

I don't think we have a finalized schedule yet, but please try to set aside as much time on those few days to come and listen to the presentations. We like to have a good showing from the grad students.


In particular, there are two events that everyone involved in the PSLC should attempt to go to:

a. The Graduate Student/Post-Doc SWOT analysis- October 6th from 10:50-11:50am; location TBA

  • Each year the grads and post-docs are asked to do an analysis of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of the PSLC. The first 10-15 minutes of this, Dan Belenky will be presenting our official list. The rest of the time will be open discussion with the NSF visitors about our position as grad students. This is a great opportunity to voice your concerns (or hear your concerns voiced) and to get feedback on how to go about affecting change.

b. "Poster Session- October 5th from 1:10-2:10pm; final location TBA"

3) PSLC grads are now responsible for keeping the List of PSLC Grads up to date.

  • If you know of someone who should be added (or deleted) from this list please e-mail the webmaster at bef25@pitt.edu. Alternatively, feel free to go in and update the list yourself!

Meeting Notes

Cognitive Factors

September 24, 2010

Welcome to the new members!

Send Ruth email if you (or any new collaborators, post-docs, grad students) need to be added to the cognitive factors d-list

Send Jo email if you need to be added to the general PSLC d-list

Advisory board dates - January 20 & 21, 2011 (Thur and Fri)

Speaker Series - Rob Goldstone has agreed to come (probably before the AB)

Handout: Cognitive Factors Thrust Plan, if see you see errors send them to Chuck (link to document coming soon)

In general for Annual Report and Strategic Plan it is important to have non-text contributions; send screenshots/pictures of interventions and/or graphs of results as they come up

Also as a general reminder, it is never too early to send bullets of exciting findings, usually collected at least once a year

Talk: How does learning to write help learning to read Chinese (fMRI study) - Fan Cao Abstract Two types of instructions were given to a group of English speakers who learn Chinese as a L2. One is character writing and the other is pinyin writing. The hypothesis is that writing will facilitate the integration of orthographic, phonological and semantic representations by involving both perception and production and by emphasizing the special features of Chinese characters. fMRI scans found that sensory-motor cortex and visual-spatial representation cortex are more involved if the subject had writing experience. We also found that writing training produced more elaborated representations of orthography, phonology and semantics in the brain as compared to pinyin training.

Slides here: Media:PSLC_Sep_24_1.pdf

Next up: Colleen Davy will speak at the October meeting, likely the last week of Oct at CMU

Grad student meeting notes: 11/15/2010

1) Discussion of iSLC Conference: March 25th-27th, 2011

Theme: researching communication and communicating language

If you are interested in giving a talk or a poster, e-mail Colleen Davy at cdavy1@andrew.cmu.edu. You might also be interested in some of the workshops at iSLC. Current proposals for workshops include sessions on CLAN and the R statistical package.

Colleen needs organizers to help decide on the placement/division of themes for poster sessions and symposia.

Graduate students need to discuss their role in the Ultimate Block Party at the iSLC.

2) Advisory board meeting: January 20th -21st

Theme: PSLC sustainability

Graduate students and post-docs will present a SWOT analysis.

Grad students and post docs can present posters at the session. Grad students and post-docs from all thrusts are encouraged to present posters.

3) Meeting with post-docs: December 6th, 2010

We will prepare a joint post-doc/grad SWOT analysis to present at the advisory board meeting.

FAQs

1. What does it take to be a PSLC grad student?

Well, there are basically three ways you can be considered a PSLC grad student.

a. You work on a project that receives funding from the PSLC.

b. Your advisor or collaborator receives funding from the PSLC and asks you to be involved.

c. You want to be a PSLC grad student.


2. What types of opportunities does the PSLC have for a grad student like me?

There are a variety of different levels of involvement and types of activities that the PSLC offers.

For the casual grad student, the PSLC organizes a speaker series with talks that may be of interest to students interested in the learning sciences. These are open to whomever wishes to go. There are also monthly lunch meetings where people associated with the PSLC can give a talk on their work.

The grad student community also hopes to organize events catered toward grad students, with topics like applying for grants, finding jobs, collaboration with people at other universities, etc. These are also open to the public.

For those who wish to get more involved, the grad student community also has monthly meetings to discuss center-wide issues, read and discuss articles we believe are relevant, plan future events, etc. Again, these are open to the public.

Finally, each thrust has regular or semi-regular meetings to discuss the thrust's theoretical framework, set the research agenda, and discuss the progress of projects within that thrust. While these are open to anyone, they're probably of limited interest unless you currently have or have had a project affiliated with the thrust.


3. What is expected of me as a PSLC grad student?

If you receive funding from the PSLC, you are expected, to the extent it is possible, to attend the thrust meetings for your relevant thrust, and attend the monthly PSLC lunches. The grad student community also encourages you to come to the grad student monthly meetings, of course.

If you don't receive funding from the PSLC, but still wish to be a part of the grad student community, your level of involvement is up to you.


How do I find out about upcoming talks/meetings/events?

One option is to check the Announcements section of this page. A possibly better option would be to get on our mailing list. To do that, e-mail Jo Bodnar at jobodnar AT cs.cmu.edu and ask to be put on the PSLC general mailing list and grad student mailing list.

There is also a regularly updated calendar at our main webpage that is updated regularly and gives a fairly complete account of most PSLC events.


4. I already consider myself a PSLC grad, and want to be included on this page! What do I have to do?

Well the great thing about the wiki page is that anybody can update it whenever they want! So, if you have an account here, and you know how to edit tables, you can just log in and add yourself!

The table formatting is a bit weird and hard to follow, so if you want to add yourself, the easiest thing to do is just copy this text:

|-
| Name  || University || Advisor || e-mail address || Bio  || Personal Webpage || Link to PSLC project page  [Project page URL Project page title]

and paste it into the appropriate place on the table. With your own information, of course.

If you don't have an account already, you can easily request one (NOTE: I forget how to do it- I'll need to add that). Once you have an account, you can just click "Edit" above the table, and you can add yourself.


5. But that's such a pain! Isn't there an easier way?!

There sure is! If you don't want to make all that effort just to have your name and e-mail address on a page, just send your info (you could even put it in the format given above!) to our Wikimaster (yep, we made that word up!), Ben Friedline, at bef25 AT pitt.edu, and he'll put it on here.

Who are the PSLC grads?

Grad Student Name University/Department Advisor E-mail Bio Personal Webpage PSLC Projects
Colleen Davy Carnegie Mellon/Psychology Brian MacWhinney cdavy1@andrew.cmu.edu I am interested in how adult second language learners develop fluent speaking skills in their second language. N/A Spanish Sentence Production
Susan Dunlap University of Pittsburgh Charles Perfetti sud4@pitt.edu My research areas include second language learning, reading, and spelling n/a [1]
Benjamin Friedline University of Pittsburgh Alan Juffs bef25@pitt.edu I am interested in how adult second language learners acquire morphology in a second language. N/A Feature Focus in Word Learning
Ruth Wylie Carnegie Mellon, HCII Ken Koedinger & Teruko Mitamura rwylie@cs.cmu.edu I'm interested in second language learning and self-explanation. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwylie Self-Explanation and ESL
Mary Lou Vercellotti University of Pittsburgh Dr. Nel de Jong marylou.vercellotti@gmail.com My research looks at complexity, accuracy, and fluency in the oral production of English as a second language. N/A Refinement and Fluency
Turadg Aleahmad Carnegie Mellon, HCII Ken Koedinger & John Zimmerman turadg@cmu.edu My research is in design methods for theory-driven educational technology. [2]
Nora Presson Carnegie Mellon, Psychology Brian MacWhinney presson@cmu.edu I am studying how practice conditions can improve learning of second language grammar, especially testing the effects of explicit instruction. Second Language Grammar Instruction
Daniel Belenky University of Pittsburgh Timothy Nokes dmb83@pitt.edu I am interesting in issues of motivation and cognition. Specifically, I have been studying how achievement goals influence transfer. N/A Dialectical Interaction and Robust Learning

Science of Learning Relevant Courses

The PIER program offers three courses -- see the PIER Web page

See also the courses taught be any of the PSLC faculty.

(Please add the names of relevant courses and web pointers if possible!)


05832 / 05432 Cognitive Modeling & Intelligent Tutoring Systems
3:00pm-4:20pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays, Fall 2010
Room 3002, Newell-Simon Hall, Carnegie Mellon University
9 units
Dr. Vincent Aleven, aleven@cs.cmu.edu

Students in this course will learn about the Cognitive Tutor technology that has been demonstrated to dramatically enhance student learning in domains like math, science, and computer programming. This type of tutoring software is currently in use in 2,700 schools around the country and is used extensively as platform for learning sciences research. The technology is grounded in artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and cognitive task analysis. Students will learn data-driven and theoretical methods for analyzing human problem solving and will learn to use such data to inform the design of intelligent tutoring systems. Course projects will focus on the development of an intelligent tutor using CTAT, the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (see http://ctat.pact.cs.cmu.edu). Some assignments will focus on creating cognitive models in the Jess production rule modeling language.

Students should either have programming skills, or experience in the cognitive psychology of human problem solving, or HCI / design skills, or permission from the instructor.