Opportunities @ PSLC
Partnering with Minority Institutions - PSLC is interested in increasing diversity in the learning sciences. As such we are actively seeking partnerships with researchers and universities at minority institutions such as those listed on the Department of Education website. At http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/list/whhbcu/edlite-list.html and http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/list/whtc/edlite-tclist.html If you are interested in pursuing a relationship with the PSLC, please contact us.
Summer School
The PSLC Summer School is an intensive 1-week course on technology-enhanced learning experiments and building intelligent tutoring systems. The summer school will provide a conceptual background and considerable hands-on experience in developing, running and analyzing technology-enhanced learning experiments. This year's summer school will be held July 7-11, 2008.
Call for Project Plans PSLC seeks to produce more rigorously supported, classroom-validated knowledge about effective educational practices. LearnLab is an international resource that combines technology, data stores, basic cognitive research, and classroom testbeds to facilitate a new paradigm of in vivo learning experimentation and yield fundamental and useful scientific principles of robust learning. We invite you to participate.
Research Assistance for Graduate
Students
This is specialized program aimed at providing existing PSLC grad students with supplements to more established grants, or to an existing but as yet unfunded proposal to the PSLC or outside agency, etc.) Contact David Klahr (klahr @ cmu.edu) for more information or to request a grant. The following ground rules apply:
1. No more than one grant per graduate student per year.
2. No "banking", i.e., if you don't get one in one
year, doesn't mean you are entitled to two the next year.
3. Max $1000. (If more is needed then other EC
members would have to be involved in the decision.)
4. 500 word proposal, as well as a description of the larger project
of which this is a part. (i.e. these are viewed as
supplementary grants to more established grants, or to an existing but as yet
unfunded proposal to the PSLC or outside agency, etc etc.)
5. A clear and reasonable justification for the
budget.
6. A two week lead time before you have to have an answer.
Usually much faster response, but this is to ensure that people don't come with urgent requests.
7. An obligation to file a brief report at the end of the grant
period describing how the funds were actually used, what was
accomplished, etc etc (2 - 3 pages).
Summer Internship Program
The Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center (PSLC) at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh has an exciting summer research opportunity available to undergraduate students. This program encourages applications from students who would like to do research in the fields of psychology, education, computer science, human-computer interfaces and language technologies.
The PSLC's program provides support for talented undergraduates to spend two months during the summer working in a research laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University or the University of Pittsburgh. The program aims to encourage the participation of underrepresented students in our graduate programs and to make the PSLC's programs more visible to students not traditionally exposed to our fields.
Attending Graduate School in Areas Related to PSLC
Students who are interested in applying to graduate school to work on subjects in the Learning Sciences are encouraged to see the websites of the Departments and Institutes at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh that are affiliated with the PSLC. They should contact those Departments for more information since applications go to them, not to the PSLC directly
Postdoctoral Positions at PSLC
Postdoctoral candidates have two options. You can apply directly to the PSLC through the project plan submission process more information about this process can be found on the website, www.LearnLab.org. You can also identify a faculty of interest from one our participating Departments and Institutes at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh (see the member list on the website) and contact that faculty member directly to inquire about the possibility of joining their research team.
Faculty and Graduate Students Can Run a LearnLab In Vivo Experiment
Learning researchers worldwide are invited to submit projects for in vivo learning experiments in a LearnLab course.
Participants can run studies in one of our seven supported LearnLab courses. Two of which are in mathematics and taught at the high school level (Algebra and Geometry); two are in the sciences and taught at the college level (Physics and Chemistry). The remaining three are in the language arts and are also taught at the college level (Chinese, French, and English as a second language). For qualified individuals and organizations interested in conducting an external study, we can provide you with a detailed course curriculum as well as a description of our logging capabilities. Email pslc-submit@lists.andrew.cmu.edu for more information. Please indicate which course or courses for which you are interested in running a study. Also please briefly state your qualifications.
Faculty and Graduate Students Can Analyze Learner Data
Learning researchers worldwide are invited to submit projects to analyze data from the PSLC Data Shop.
Data from student interactions are being stored in PSLCs Data Shop and being made available to learning researchers. The data comes primarily, but not exclusively, from online student interactions with intelligent tutoring systems and other interactive software in use one of our seven LearnLab courses (see above). Find out more by following links to the Data Shop on www.learnlab.org.
Visiting Faculty
Faculty members interested in an extended visit should contact one of the directors or a faculty member of interest.