Keynotes & Faculty Panel
Opening Keynote: Cindy Hmelo-Silver
Dr. Cindy Hmelo-Silver is a Distinguished Professor of Learning Sciences at Indiana University and the Director of the Center for Research on Learning and Technology. She focuses on how people learn about complex phenomena and how technology can help support that learning. As part of this work, she studies problem-based learning, collaborative knowledge construction, and computer supported collaborative learning. She studies the role of technology to support social knowledge construction and collaborative learning and problem-solving.
Faculty Panel: Victor Lee, Day Greenberg, & Gayithri Jayathirtha
Dr. Day Greenberg joins the School of Education as an Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences in the Department of Instructional Systems Technology this year. Dr. Greenberg researches justice-oriented youth learning and development in STEM outside of school, with a particular focus on museums and science centers, community organizations, summer programs, and youth media. This approach to research centers design-based, critical ethnographic, and participatory approaches and methods.
Contact: daygr@iu.edu
Dr. Gayithri Jayathirtha is a Computing Innovation Fellow at the University of Oregon, Eugene (USA), where she works with computing teachers to think about and develop critical computing materials. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Ph.D. in Learning Sciences, concentrating on K-12 computing education. Prior to pursuing her doctoral program, she earned her master’s degree in Learning Sciences and Technologies from the University of Pennsylvania and her undergraduate degree in Computer Science Engineering from Bangalore University, Bangalore (India) and was a K-12 math teacher and teacher workshop facilitator in India for six years before starting her graduate studies.
Contact: gayithri@uoregon.edu
Dr. Victor R. Lee is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and leads the Data Interactions & STEM Teaching and Learning (DISTAL) Lab. Through his research, he asks what STEM knowledge, tools, and practices are important to know to enable active participation and critical engagement with our increasingly digitally-infused lives. He then uses the tools of educational design to create examples for how we could get there.
Contact: vrlee@stanford.edu
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Moderated by Juan Pinto
Closing Keynote: Megan Bang
Dr. Megan Bang (Ojibwe and Italian descent) is a Professor of the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University and is currently serving as the Director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research. Dr. Bang studies foundational dynamics of culture, learning, and development across the life course particularly with respect to the natural world. She has been especially interested in knowledge organization, reasoning, and decision-making about complex socio-ecological systems and their intersections with identity, cultural variation, history and power.