In this course, we will explore perspectives and research on domain-specific and domain-general learning in and out of schools, especially those typically considered in the field of the learning sciences. We will examine various perspectives researchers use to inform their work and how these perspectives provide insight into what it means to learn and know.

The course objectives include the following:

• Understand key questions addressed in research on learning
• Understand foundational and modern theories and perspectives in learning
• Understand how various learning theories are applied in domain-specific and domain-general research contexts and their limitations
• Develop and articulate your own perspectives and research questions on learning.

This course provides an overview of major theories of human development from childhood through adulthood. This course will focus on the individual learner as influenced by individual and social-learning processes; the interrelationships between human learning and development; social settings for learning such as classroom, business, and informal learning environments; the applications of learning theories and models; the learning of language(s), content, social practices, and reasoning processes. Emphasis will be placed on how social, cultural, and linguistic diversity interacts to create variation in human learning.

This course provides an overview of technology applications in learning environments, including history, theoretical foundations, design processes, and available technologies. The course includes an exploration of online learning applications/software, instructional design considerations, and curriculum development for online settings. Topics could include multi-literacies, digital youth network, media and connected learning, web-based learning, Al, and machine-based learning models.

This course provides an overview of the assessment of learners in the educational, business, workplace, and informal settings, emphasizing considerations related to cultural and linguistic diversity. Topics include classroom-based assessment, high-stakes assessment in educational settings, job placement and certification testing, and program evaluation. Among the assessment techniques to be covered are cognitive interviews, the analysis of group-based processes, discourse analysis, and focus-group work.

This course provides an overview of how organizations adapt and change, including changes that could be considered “learning.” Changes in shared values, structures, and practices can facilitate and/or hinder an organization’s capacity to gather, select, and process information, retain that information, and act upon knowledge valued and created by members. Emphasis is placed on how participants’ careers fit within their employment or field-placement sites as learning organizations and how their efforts can help their sites to learn.

This course deepens participants’ understandings of workplace training and professional development by relating learning to needs assessments; instructional design techniques; program planning, marketing, and delivery techniques; and evaluation of adult learning programs within a variety of organizational settings. Emphasis is placed on constructing training and professional development programs that are meaningful to a diverse workforce and that achieve individual and organizational outcomes to improve an individual’s and the organization’s performance. 

This graduate course focuses on diverse philosophies and epistemologies of research and the various methodologies that arise from them. Students will develop an understanding of and appreciation for a range of complementary educational research traditions. The goal is to enable students to participate meaningfully and critically in multiple discourse communities that employ and/or produce research bearing on substantive local, national, and international issues in education. 

This course provides an introduction to data analysis and statistical inference. Students learn to describe data (quantitatively and graphically), to select and compute statistical estimates and hypothesis tests, to use computer packages (SPSS) to accomplish these tasks and to interpret and write about the results of the estimates and tests.

The completion of this course is focused on a project that should address a local problem or issue related to learning (e.g., designing effective instruction online). For that, students need to:

• Design and develop a sophisticated need analysis (e.g., learner analysis, task analysis, performance analysis) about addressing a situation/issue they selected
• Layout the theoretical foundations that they take up/will be applying based on the field of the learning sciences
• Describe the new design in detail, including its constituent components and how it is informed by the theory laid out.