The LIFE Center: Learning in Informal and Formal Environments

With news of a $25 million NSF grant to support the creation of the collaborative LIFE Center, professors Roy Pea, Byron Reeves, Dan Schwartz, Brigid Barron, Shelley Goldman and Na'ilah Nasir of the School of Education embark on a five-year plan that aims to transform the face of multidisciplinary educational research. This fall marks the beginning of what will likely be one of Pea's most significant projects to date.

"We are thrilled to be honored by this new NSF award," said Professor Pea. "Our belief is that this is a propitious time for developing an integrated science of learning that accounts for human learning processes and outcomes at the neuroscience, cognitive, and socio-cultural levels. Our aim is to contribute to developing the learning sciences to advance useable knowledge for designing powerful learning environments throughout the lifespan and diversity of learning contexts--from schools to workplaces, and homes to communities."

Directed by University of Washington (UW) Professor John Bransford, LIFE is a collaborative center developed with Co-Principal Investigators Roy Pea (co-director of SCIL), Patricia Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff from UW's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, and Nora Sabelli, from SRI International's Center for Technology in Learning.

Including 40 other faculty and researchers from the learning sciences, psychology, education, developmental cognitive and social neuroscience, communications, and computer science, the LIFE Center will work toward an integrated science of learning for our fast-changing, technology-rich world. Basic research will be conducted through three intersecting and multidisciplinary strands of inquiry.

The first strand will document learning in the brain over the lifespan and discover from empirical and modeling work the underlying neural processes and principles associated with implicit forms of cognitive, linguistic and social learning.
The second strand will study informal settings to develop comprehensive and coordinated accounts of the cognitive, social, affective, and cultural dimensions that propel learning and development outside of school.
The third strand will examine principled designs for learning in formal educational and other settings that attempt fundamental improvements in the design of high performance learning environments

Researchers from the three research strands will collaborate on Signature Projects -- inter-strand empirical initiatives that will serve as capstone projects to deliberately seek a common testable framework with potential to orient a new science of learning.

In the LIFE Center's Education, Collaboration and Outreach (ECO) program, we will engage our community of research scientists, engineers and designers to work with counterparts outside the Center to use the Center's human and technological resources. Undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students will be invited to spend time at LIFE, engaged in research in the areas framed by our goal. By working with an ECO Program Board that is representative of relevant outside communities, we will initiate, facilitate and cultivate strong and lasting partnerships with formal and informal education institutes, schools, and professional communities involved in science, mathematics, technology, and learning research.

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