Learning Sciences Graduate Students

Joel Beier is a member of the Learning Representations and Technology Lab with Dr. Martina Rau. His research interests include understanding the ways that we communicate with and about visual representations in scientific contexts.

My main interests including distributed scaffolding and classroom orchestration by utilizating/integrating technology (simulation or collaborative platform/interface) in middle/high school classroom teaching and learning, especially for biology or physic subjects.

My research interests include applying an embodied cognition approach to understand the underlying learning mechanisms of engineering students.

My research is currently focused on how teachers customize immersive learning environments to create authentic STEM learning experiences.

Doy Kim is a graduate student in the Learning Sciences area of the Educational Psychology department. Doy's research interest is specifically focused on the embodiment approach toward mathematics learning.

I currently work in the Learning Representations and Technology Lab with Dr. Martina Rau where I lead experimental studies on perceptual fluency. My interests focus on adult learning, perceptual fluency, as well as on how implicit and nonverbal feedback affect individual and collaborative learning of representational competencies. I am committed to mentoring undergraduate research assistants using evidence-based mentoring practices.

I am fascinated and intrigued by the possibilities that grounded and embodied cognition suggest for learning, and my research focuses on the design of learning interventions that use our bodies to help underrepresented young people from under-resourced communities learn math better; Specifically, I am investigating how learning activities that utilize different degrees of embodiment facilitate grounding within the instructional theory of concreteness fading, for the STEM domain of geometry.

I am interested in understanding how students interact with instructional materials and communicate with visual representation.

My research focuses on embodied cognition and spatial ability in mathematics education.

I am interested in understanding students’ learning processes that interact with instructional materials in individual and collaborative learning environments by analyzing multiple streams of data.

Yuanru works in the Epistemic Analytics lab advised by Dr. David Williamson Shaffer, where she and her colleagues create novel approaches and statistical tools to improve the assessment of complex thinking.

I am interested in understanding how people construct knowledge in different social-cultural contexts, applying theory-based analytics-driven methods.

I am interested in examining ways to connect mathematical ideas and practices with physical motions, and designing embodied activities to help students learn mathematics better.