I earned my PhD from the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE) and Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI). My research focuses on the theory and design of learning spaces that support students in collaboratively investigating and building knowledge through authentic inquiry. My PhD thesis, “Supporting Collective Inquiry: A Technology Framework for Distributed Learning”, showed how classrooms can be transformed into dynamic environments that enable students to collaboratively develop and refine their thinking, understand their growth within a knowledge community, and provide multiple entry points for engagement. My research also focuses on developing specific orchestrational tools and visualizations of the community’s knowledge that help teachers understand the state of the class’ knowledge, support them in engaging in meaningful discussion at critical moments in the learning process, and adjust the flow of activities in response to emergent themes, insights, and avenues for inquiry.
Currently as a post-doctoral researcher at the University Wisconsin Madison with the Complex Play Lab and Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, I am working with researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago and the New York Hall of Science to design and research technology rich, immersive and embodied environments that help learners engage in authentic inquiry within the domains of science and engineering. In addition to researching how different aspects of the learning environment help learners to self-monitor, set goals, and take on different roles, I am also developing new orchestrational tools that use real-time data mining and analytics to support museum guides to engage with learners as they interact with our exhibits.
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