The Harvard Graduate School of
Education
Dynamic
Development Lab
Research by
current DDRG members
Welcome
Linda
Booth Sweeney
My work is dedicated to helping children and adults
understand how our natural and social worlds function
through systems-based inquiry. Through my research (in the
areas of systems thinking, organizational learning, system
dynamics and eco-literacy) I am currently investigating the
following questions:
* What claims can we make (based on empirical evidence) about the dynamic systems concepts (e.g., circular feedback, emergent properties, non-linearities, stocks and flows) people (youth and adult) understand? What might be the source of misconceptions?
* What are the cognitive strategies or "epistemic moves" (Perkins and Grotzer 2000) people are expected to demonstrate in the process of systems-based inquiry?
* What links can be made between understanding of dynamic systems concepts to particular developmental stages?
I am particularly interested in how the answers to these questions can be used to improve current models of teaching and learning
My greatest pleasure is being the mother of two (wonderful) young sons.
Publications:
Books and Book Chapters:
The Systems Thinking Playbook: Volumes I-III (1995/1998/2001), co-author of Volume II and III with Dr. Dennis Meadows), Pegasus Communications.
When a Butterfly Sneezes: A guide for helping kids explore interconnections in our world through favorite stories. (2001). Pegasus Communications.
"Managing Complex Dynamic Systems: Challenge and Opportunity for Naturalistic Decision-Making Theory" (2001). Naturalistic Decision Making. Book chapter written with Professor John Sterman. In press.
Journal Articles:
"Bathtub dynamics: Initial results of a systems thinking inventory," System Dynamics Review (2001). 16(4), pg. 249-286. Co-authored with Dr. John Sterman.
"Leveraging change: The power of systems thinking in action: Commentary," (Winter 2001). In Reflections: The SoL Journal on Knowledge, Learning and Change. Volume 2, No. 2.
Michael
Connell
My interest is primarily centered in mathematical and
computational models of the brain and mind. For the last
several years I have been working with artificial neural
network models in an effort to understand how external
constraints inherent in different knowledge domains interact
with neurological contraints in the brain to shape the way
knowledge is acquired and represented in the human nervous
system and how it is used as the basis for thought and
action. My educational goals relating to this work include
developing tools for refining theoretical constructs and
definitions (such as a metric for what constitutes
"interesting" individual variation and a frame of reference
in which to precisely define nebulous terms like "knowledge
transfer"), and developing tools that can be used by
educators in the classroom (such as new kinds of assessment
instruments).
Kathleen
Guinee
My academic interest is the cognitive development of
children and how both internal (neurological) and external
(home environment and relationships, as well as school
environment) factors work together to influence the way a
child learns. Based on my studies, I hope to design
educational environments and tools, particularly using
technology, that ease knowledge acquisition and promote
understanding in students.
Mary Immordino Yang
As a doctoral student in Mind, Brain, and Education at
HUGSE, my interests are in language and cognition, which I
study broadly from both an evolutionary and a
neuropsychological perspective. My qualifying paper,
entitled "Working memory for music and language: Analogous
sytems based on similar symbolic experience?", examined the
neuropsychological and cognitive literatures on music and
language processing for evidence that parallel syntactic
experience in the two domains leads to the recruitment of
similar neurological resources and cognitive systems. My
current projects include a study of prosodic development in
a ten-year-old right-hemispherectomized boy from Argentina
and his peers. Past projects have included a study of
metaphor use in a seventh grade science classroom, and an
investigation of the role of self-scaffolding through talk
during piano students' sight-reading. Before becoming a
student at HUGSE, I was a seventh grade science and high
school French teacher.
Ulas
Kaplan
My current research has two main focuses: dynamics of moral
development and human motivation. In the first line of
research, I explore the patterns of variation in moral
development and moral performance in relation to the
interaction and integration of moral action, cognition and
emotion. My most recent research on human motivation is a
cross-cultural study on psychological well-being and its
relation to internalization of -- individualist and
collectivist -- cultural values and practices, with
particular emphasis on the universal importance of autonomy
for psychological well-being and development.
Ellen
Pruyne
My dissertation research is focused on reflective thinking
in the exercise of leadership. In particular I am studying
the visioning process, which is widely agreed to be one of
the critical components in effective leadership. I am also
looking at reflective thinking that occurs at various
systemic levels -- the personal or intra-individual level
(i.e. the individual mind) and the group/team and
organizational levels (i.e. the group mind). In addition,
Kurt Fischer and I recently completed a chapter of the
upcoming Handbook of Adult Development on brain and behavior
changes involved in the development of reflective thinking,
called "Reflective Thinking in Adulthood: Emergence,
Development, and Variation." My qualifying paper was a
literature review in which I compared and contrasted seven
theories of reflective thinking.
Jeff Stewart
Stages
Beyond Abstract Reasoning
My research interest is in examining the possibility of
stages beyond those of abstractions. What is the nature of
the experiences variously known as
"transpersonal,""mystical," or even "psychic?" Do they
constitute other stages, or are they merely a fantasy or
some kind of intrusion in normal development? If there are,
in fact, stages beyond conventional reasoning (as many of
the world's spiritual and wisdom literatures suggest), is
the developmental trajectory described by current theory
able to describe them in a way consistent with present
understanding?
Consciousness
and the Self
I am interested in how affect acts as a regulatory
intermediary between the self and culture, and between the
self and consciousness. Evolution appears to have given us a
nervous system that rewards us for imitating our
conspecifics, facilitating rapid learning and social
bonding. I am currently thinking about how selection might
occur at the group level to bring about changes in
individual ethical behavior in the service of reducing
violence and alienation.
Harriet Tenenbaum
My research focuses on parent-child conversations within
social and cultural contexts. As emphasized by
social-cognitive and ecocultural theoretical frameworks, I
situate development in children's daily experiences.
Everyday parent-child conversations enrich children's
understanding of the natural and social world as well as
inform children about their parents' expectations. However,
parental conversations may vary with child gender, parent
gender, and the educational background of the parents. My
research investigates the manifestation of these differences
in parent-child conversation and their relationships with
children's learning.
Previously, I investigated gender inequities in parents' science-rich conversations with their daughters and sons. A second related research direction focuses on variations in ethnic minority parents' explanations and questions in a variety of sociocultural settings. In a third related research direction, with Kurt Fischer and Catherine Snow, I am investigating how parents engage children in talk about biology (e.g., nutrition, caterpillars) during everyday dinnertime and bookreading conversations when children are 3, 4, and 5 years-old. Additionally, we are conducting a study of children's learning in the Boston Children's Museum.
Imprints
of the Self: Manifestations of Children's Cognitive
Structures in their Drawing of Self and Significant
Others
Results derived from a comparative pilot study of
drawings produced by monolingual and bilingual third graders
in an urban school are presented in Varianís
qualifying paper, submitted October 12, 1999. A specific
drawing task was designed to capture children's sense of
self and of the most significant people in their lives, with
the premise that the underlying construction of drawings
would capture the nature of studentsí cognitive
structures. The study was designed to test the hypothesis
that bilingual children develop higher cognitive complexity
levels.
Zheng
Yan
My research interests are 1) life-span cognitive
development, 2) computer skill acquisition, and 3) applied
developmental research methodology. Past projects
include:
Dynamics
in Microdevelopment of Learning a Computer Program
This thesis project, through microdevelopmental analysis
of 30 student's performance of four projects over one
semester under the supportive condition, examines two
dynamic variations, inter-individual and intra-individual.
It further analyzes dynamic mechanisms that reveal how the
two observed dynamic variations associate with the three
variables, supportive context, previous knowledge, and
current understanding.
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