Award Abstract # 1239599
CAP: Collaborative Research: Building a Network to Advance Collaborative Research on Young Children's Learning through Public Media Assets

NSF Org: IIS
Division of Information & Intelligent Systems
Recipient: NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: August 30, 2012
Latest Amendment Date: January 11, 2018
Award Number: 1239599
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: John Cherniavsky
IIS
 Division of Information & Intelligent Systems
CSE
 Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Start Date: January 1, 2013
End Date: September 30, 2018 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $49,985.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $49,985.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2012 = $49,985.00
History of Investigator:
  • Reed Stevens (Principal Investigator)
    reed-stevens@northwestern.edu
  • Ellen Wartella (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Northwestern University
633 CLARK ST
EVANSTON
IL  US  60208-0001
(312)503-7955
Sponsor Congressional District: 09
Primary Place of Performance: Northwestern University
2120 Campus Drive
Evanston
IL  US  60208-2610
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
09
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): EXZVPWZBLUE8
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Cyberlearn & Future Learn Tech
Primary Program Source: 01001213DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 8045, 8055
Program Element Code(s): 802000
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.070

ABSTRACT

This Cyberlearning Capacity-Building project brings together learning scientists, experts in media creation, experts in child development, producers of public media assets, parent, and educators in an effort to build social infrastructure that will support bringing what is known about how people learn to the design of public media that can effectively connect school learning and out-of-school learning for young children. The team's theoretical framing and working hypothesis highlights the importance of media as a catalyst for collaboration and learning conversations; according to the theoretical base, these collaborations and learning conversations, when carried out across peers and in families, can play a powerful role in connecting children's school and outside-of-school experiences. Two workshops are being convened for the purpose of shedding light on the pragmatics of doing this -- the R&D partnerships needed, the methods that might be used, and the issues that need to be addressed for success. Through partnerships with children's educational media producers, the team is building capacity for interdisciplinary teams that include learning scientists and media producers to engage in research around how to use public media assets to promote the kinds of learning conversations in and out of school that will connect home and school settings into a distributed learning environment.

This project is laying the groundwork for new interdisciplinary research efforts addressing issues in early learning. The team's theoretical framework points to media as a catalyst for the kinds of collaborations and conversations that might promote learning and connect children's school and out-of-school experiences. Thus, this project is bringing together learning scientists and children's educational media producers (PBS, Sesame Workshop, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center) to seed future collaborations. The goals of this initial collaboration are to work together to establish new methods for studying learning with media and advance understanding of how public media assets can be leveraged to support the learning and interest development of young children and their families.

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

Project Summary: This small scale project had the goal of bringing together researchers doing work on youth media practices, from different disciplines but with common interests in how these media practices affect youth learning and development. The project funding supported a workshop at Northwestern University hosted by Reed Stevens and Ellen Wartella called “The Contemporary Terrain of Children’s Media Practices”. The project funding also supported the writing and production of a follow-on report, with the same title that will be released in April of 2019. This report includes a description of the studies featured at the workshop and short commissioned essays from leading scholars in this area, addressing the question, “What do you regard as the most important question(s) or issue(s) for research on children’s media practices?”

Intellectual Merit: This project had the goal of bringing together researchers working on questions of youth media practice in different disciplines (e.g. the learning sciences, education, psychology, information sciences, and communication). The workshop and follow on report highlight approaches to research and to new questions that field should be addressing.

Broader impact: The project goal of bringing together researchers from different disciplines and contributing to the building of a new network of scholars looking at questions of youth media practices was accomplished. The hope for the published report is that it will inspire new scholars in the field and potentially raise new questions and issues that are of interest to the general public (e.g. educators, parents, policy makers).

 

 

 


Last Modified: 01/03/2019
Modified by: Reed Stevens

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