NYU Steinhardt News and Announcements http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/news/ ECT Student Selected for the NSF Nordic Research Opportunity http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/news/2009/5/27/ECT_NRO Gabriela Richards, a third-year ECT doctoral student, has been selected to participate this summer i[...] National Science Foundation (NSF) program for NSF's Graduate Research Fellows. It is a pilot program developed and conducted collaboratively by the NSF, the Research Council of Norway, and the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.

"The Division of Graduate Education and the Office of International Science and Engineering announce a new international research opportunity, available as a Supplemental Award, for NSF Graduate Research Fellows (GRFs), to enable Fellows to gain international research experience and establish collaborations with counterparts at Norwegian or Finnish research institutions.”The competitive NSF awards were based on the merit of proposals submitted.  Subsequently, the NSF and its partner foreign agencies placed research fellows with participating Finnish and Norwegian labs based on merit in the collaboration. The awards consist of relocation expenses and a monthly stipend from the Finnish funding agency.

Gabriela will be one of 15 individuals embarking on this first internationally sponsored research collaboration through the GRFP. She will be working with the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT).  Her research focus there will be digital content communities and ubiquitous interaction,which will compliment her current research on tangible technologies in education.

 ]]> 2009-05-27T13:04:29Z Plass to Co-Direct new Games For Learning Institute, Funded by Microsoft http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/news/2008/10/8/G4LI Jan Plass, associate professor of educational communication and technology, will co-direct the new G[...] Jan Plass, associate professor of educational communication and technology, will co-direct the new Games for Learning Institute (G4LI), a first-of-its-kind, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional gaming research alliance that will provide the fundamental scientific evidence to support games as learning tools for math and science subjects among middle-school students.

The Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) is a joint research endeavor of Microsoft Research, New York University, and a consortium of universities. The partners include Columbia University, the City University of New York (CUNY), Dartmouth College, Parsons the New School for Design, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and Teachers College. The G4LI will identify which qualities of computer games engage students and develop relevant, personalized teaching strategies that can be applied to the learning process. Ken Perlin, professor of computer science in NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and founding director of the Media Research Laboratory at NYU, who will co-direct the G4LI.

Microsoft Research is providing $1.5 million to the Institute. NYU and its consortium of partners are matching Microsoft's investment, for a combined $3 million. Funding covers the first three years of the G4LI's research, which will focus on evaluating computer games as potential learning tools for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects at the middle-school years (grades 6-8). The institute will work with a range of student populations, yet focus on underrepresented middle-school students, such as girls and minorities.

Video games, with their popularity and singular ability to engage young people, are showing promise as a way to excite and prepare the Net generation, the current crop of students who have grown up on technology. This generation, though well-versed in using technology for social networking and Internet research, is continuing a decline in proficiency and interest in math and sciences - the very skills needed to prepare them for the new demands and requirements of the 21st century.

While NYU will serve as the hub of the G4LI in its Computer Science Media Research Laboratory at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the multi-institutional organization will have a myriad of partner spokes. The G4LI also will evaluate game prototypes and introduce them, along with accompanying curricula, to an existing network of 19 New York City area schools; results in the classroom will be tracked. Based on the findings, the institute's goal is to expand its research and game development to all K-12 grades. Resulting scientific evidence will be shared broadly with researchers, game developers and educators.

Media coverage of G4LI announcement: 

The New York Times
e-Week
Popular Mechanics
Washington Square News
PC World

 

]]> 2008-10-08T15:07:43Z Francine Shuchat Shaw's videos on HIV receive glowing reviews http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/news/2008/9/30/Francine_Shuchat_Shaws_videos_on_HIV_receive_glowing_reviews Francine Shuchat Shaw, a professor in the Educational Communication and Technology program at [...] Francine Shuchat Shaw, a professor in the Educational Communication and Technology program at NYU Steinhardt, has over 25 years of expertise in designing video to support learning across many disciplines. She has produced a series of live action videos which focus primarily on HIV. The series, called HIV Is Still a Big Deal, was a collaboration with Mary Ann Chiasson of the Medical and Health Research Association of New York.

During the Summer of 2008, these videos were reviewed in over 30 print and online magazines. Click the links below to read reactions:

Watch the video

]]> 2008-09-30T10:13:11Z NYU Faculty Receive $1.1 Million Grant to Improve Chemistry Education http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/news/2008/2/6/NYU_Faculty_Receive_11_Million_Grant_to_Improve_Chemistry_Education NYU's Steinhardt School and College of Arts and Science (CAS) will collaborate on “Molecul[...] NYU's Steinhardt School and College of Arts and Science (CAS) will collaborate on “Molecules and Minds: Optimizing Simulations for Chemistry Education,” a $1.1 million, three-year grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to develop effective chemistry simulations for a broad range of high school students, including underserved and underachieving learners.

The grant blends expertise from three Steinhardt departments and from CAS. Principal investigator Jan Plass, associate professor in the Department of Administration, Leadership and Technology, will work with Steinhardt's assistant professors Bruce Homer of Applied Psychology and Catherine Milne of Teaching and Learning, along with Trace Jordan, assistant director of the core curriculum in CAS. Under the grant, the group will enhance the computer simulations used in chemistry education to make them more interactive and exploratory, as compared to current models which are often fairly abstract and hard to manipulate.

“We have a real problem attracting people to degrees in the sciences nationwide,” says Jan Plass. “We want to design educational tools for a broader audience, so that more students can benefit from them and even learn to enjoy the sciences.”

Homer, whose work focuses on cognitive development and the symbolic understandings of children, says, “I see our work on this grant as an intersection between basic and applied research.” The team, along with NYU students, will take their enhanced models into the classrooms of New York City public high schools.

“In this study, we'll take a theory of learning and use it in representations that we think will be educationally useful and then take them to the schools,” says Milne. “Then we'll see if what we think is useful actually works in school settings. That's what is so exciting to me.”

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