News, Awards, and Honors
Awards and Honors:
Carrie Leana and Frits Pil win 2006 Sloan Industry Studies Best Paper Prize
APA selects Lauren Resnick for 2007 Applications of Psychology to Education Award
Diane Litman presents keynote speech at human language technology conference
Chancellor's reception and LRDC seminar mark Robert Glaser's career achievements
Media Highlights:
Associated Press features Erik Reichle's research on "mindless reading"
High school teachers in LRDC innovative design project are highlighted in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Kurt VanLehn talks about virtual tutors with the Chronicle of Higher Education
Post-Gazette features UPCLOSE work at the Carnegie Museum and the Pittsburgh Children's Museum
Congratulations to LRDC Center Associate Carrie R. Leana and LRDC Research Scientist Frits K. Pil on winning the 2006 Sloan Industry Studies Best Paper Prize for their Organization Science (May/June 2006) article, "Social Capital and Organizational Performance: Evidence from Urban Public Schools". The prize is awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
The American Psychological Association has selected LRDC Director Lauren Resnick as the recipient of its 2007 Distinguished Contributions of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training Award. The award recognizes a psychologist for evidence-based applications of psychology to education and training. The award committee highlighted Dr. Resnick's founding of Cognition and Instruction, calling the journal "a model for the world's educational researchers." The award will be presented next August at the 2007 annual APA Convention in San Francisco.
LRDC Associate Director Charles Perfetti delivered the Distinguished Research Award Address during the plenary session of the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, July 6-8, in Vancouver, Canada. Perfetti's talk was entitled, "Reading ability: The Lexical Quality Account".
LRDC Research Scientist and Project Director Diane Litman presented a keynote speech on June 7 at the 2006 annual meeting of the Human Language Technology Conference of the North American chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, in New York City.
Litman's speech was entitled, "Spoken Dialogue for Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Opportunities and Challenges".
Abstract:
In recent years, the development of intelligent tutoring dialogue systems has become more prevalent, in an attempt to close the performance gap between human and computer tutors. With advancesin speech technology, several systems have begun to incorporate spoken language capabilities, hypothesizing that adding speech technology will promote student learning by enhancing communication richness. Tutoring applications differ in many ways, however, from the types of applications for which spoken dialogue systems are typically developed. This talk will illustrate some of the opportunities and challenges in this area, focusing on issues such as affective reasoning, discourse analysis, error handling, and performance evaluation.
Bio:
Before coming to LRDC Litman was a member of the Artificial Intelligence Principles Research Department, AT&T Labs - Research (formerly Bell Laboratories); she was also an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. Litman received her Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Rochester. Her current research focuses on enhancing the effectiveness of tutorial dialogue systems through the use of spoken language processing, affective computing, and machine learning. She has collaborated on the development of spoken dialogue systems in multiple application areas, including intelligent tutoring (ITSPOKE), chat (CobotDS) and database/web access (NJFun and TOOT). Litman has been Chair of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, a member of the Executive Committee of the Association for Computational Linguistics, and a member of the editorial boards of Computational Linguistics and User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction.
2006
Dr. Robert Glaser's dedication to and leadership of the Learning Research and Development Center was marked with a reception on May 23 hosted by Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and Provost James V. Maher. Before the reception, LRDC conducted a seminar in Dr. Glaser's honor entitled, "Retrospectives and Prospectives in Educational Research". Participants included LRDC's Michelene Chi and Lauren Resnick (chair), Drew Gitomer, Educational Testing Service, James Pellegrino, University of Illinois, Chicago, and Leona Schauble, Vanderbilt University.
Read about Dr. Glaser and his career in this May 30, 2006 Pitt Chronicle article.
Erik Reichle, Research Scientist
Mindless reading seen as fundamental
USA Today
July 3, 2006
An Associated Press story that ran in newspaper, radio and television outlets across the country featured Erik Reichle and his research on so-called "mindless reading"--a phenomenon in which people take in sentence after sentence without really paying attention.
Reichle's research found that readers who zoned out most tended to do the worst on tests of reading comprehension — a significant, if not surprising, result. His work also suggested that zoning out caused the poor test results, as opposed to other possible factors, such as the complexity of the text or the task.
Pitt develops wireless version of nerve stimulator
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
January 18, 2006
"Last summer, four science teachers from Allderdice, Peabody, Perry and Westinghouse high schools -- Theodora Bennett, Robert Cuda, Kathy Hoelzle and Eric Laurenson -- began working at Pitt under a program funded by the National Science Foundation, helping to convert [a] device for use in treating seizures."
These teachers participated in a project called, Bringing Innovative Design into Urban High Schools on a Sustainable Basis: The University of Pittsburgh Innovative Design Team RET Site. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the program aims to implement several of the University of Pittsburgh’s innovative design research activities at the high school level in an effort to foster creativity and promote interest in science, technology, and math (STEM) subjects, particularly for underrepresented pre-college students. LRDC is a partner in the project with the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson Center for Product Innovation.
2005
Kurt VanLehn, Senior Scientist
Virtual Tutors Guide Students but Aren't Quite Ready to Replace Professors
The Chronicle of Higher Education
November 23, 2005
"Kurt VanLehn, a professor of computer science and a director of the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center at the University of Pittsburgh, has developed a text-based virtual tutor to help college students learn physics.
He says the software essentially "watches" students as they complete physics problems, and it can respond if the student clicks a button asking for help. "When the person has asked for help because they can't take the next step in solving the problem, then it gives them a hint, such as, Think about the direction of the acceleration of the car," says Mr. VanLehn.
The software was developed in conjunction with the U.S. Naval Academy, which uses it for some courses, he says.
At one point, Mr. VanLehn says, he considered adding a visual component that would have a talking-head character deliver the advice that now arrives in pop-up text windows, but instructors working with the software said they thought that was unnecessary. "The literature on the talking heads is mixed," he says.
But he says that the idea of developing computer programs to help students plow through homework assignments interactively is one that will catch on, regardless of what the software looks like. "This is the future," he says."
The University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE), an LRDC project, was highlighted twice in October in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Carnegie Museum of Natural History opens biotechnology lab geared to students Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 27, 2005
Children's Museum honored
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 17, 2005
In an October 27 story about a new biotechnology lab for students at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, UPCLOSE Research Specialist Lauren Giarratani was cited for her work on the lab's curriculum.
On October 17, UPCLOSE was recognized for its 8-year collaboration with the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. According to the Post-Gazette, UPCLOSE director Kevin Crowley and 18 graduate students work with museum staff members to see how parents and children respond to exhibits and how they learn and use the building's facilities. Last summer, the partnership staff used observation, conversations with visitors and videotaping to study each exhibit area in the museum. Crowley is an associate professor of education and psychology at Pitt and a research scientist at the LRDC, where UPCLOSE makes its home in new offices adjacent to the Center's recently renovated lobby.
