Some of our recent projects can be found below. Information about completed projects can be found of people’s homepages or through their publications.
| Project | Short Description | Click below to find out more |
|---|---|---|
| Drawing to learn | When children and adults are learning complicated new ideas, research suggests that drawing can be an effective and engaging way to learn. In this work, we explore how drawing works to help students in domains as diverse as anatomy, fashion design, physics and chemistry learn as they read texts, study material, remember situations or interact with simulations. It explores how drawing activities should be designed, whether there are important individual differences that influence learning by drawing and how |  |
| Honestly learning | Students preparing their assignments often face a tension around authorship: how much help are they allowed to get for the credit that will be attached to their name? Educators welcome how the Internet can support student inquiry. Less welcome is how it can also invite a cut-and-paste representation of that inquiry. At the extreme of dubious study practices are those online services that offer to write assignments on a student’s behalf. In this project we explore the temptations for seeking such ‘help’ – and how to avoid them. |  |
| Public knowledge learning | Every day people are inundated with claims of knowledge through many media avenues. Understanding how people make sense of and use these claims to inform their lives is of paramount importance to the development of our societies. Public Knowledge Learning project envisions all of actors in public discourse as learners who simultaneously act as both producers and consumers of knowledge, and who interact with one another through in-the-moment meaning making. | |
| Green Home Games | While household energy management is traditionally an adult-centric activity, we believe the children can play a productive role in helping their families move toward more sustainable ways of living. Green Home Games creates playful activities—like board games—designed to include the whole family to learn about energy consumption in homes. |  |
| Bricks and Bits | Bricks and Bits is a project that offers a makerspace to higher education students with the aim to connect students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, providing them an opportunity to provide a service to a child in their immediate community by re-designing a toy. |  |
| Encouraging pro-environmental behaviours | Climate change is a major problem currently facing society. While many individuals understand what actions they can take to combat it (e.g., turning electrical devices off), actual behavioural change is limited. This project focuses on creating climate change education materials for primary school children. The aim of which are to develop children's understanding that their actions do have an impact and, ultimately, to change attitudes and intentions towards pro-environmental behaviours. | |
| Computer-Supported Second Language Education | Multiliteracies-Based, Computer-Supported Second Language Education in Historically Black Universities in the United States | |
| Academics of Working Class Heritage Talking | Working class academics share their stories in comics form |  |