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National expert in science learning environments to speak at the UGA Learning and Performance Labora

Athens, Ga. – Joseph Krajcik, a national expert in design and development of science education learning environments, will speak at the University of Georgia Learning and Performance Support Laboratory’s Spring Symposium at the College of Education on Monday, April 18.

Krajcik, a professor of science education and codirector of the Center for Curriculum Materials Science at the University of Michigan, will deliver a talk titled “Designing Science Learning Environments to Foster In-depth Understanding of Content and Practices,” from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in G-5 Aderhold Hall.

“Over the last 15 years, researchers in cognitive science, psychology of learning and education have made important strides in understanding how people learn,” said Krajcik.

During his talk, Krajcik will discuss the ways in which students learn and how these ideas are transformed into guidelines that can promote connected understandings of challenging science content and scientific practice.

Krajcik works with teachers in science classrooms to bring about sustained change by creating classroom environments in which students find solutions to important intellectual questions that subsume essential curriculum standards and use learning technologies as productivity tools. Part of his research focuses on exploring and finding solutions to challenges that teachers face in enacting complex instruction.

In collaboration with colleagues from Northwestern University, the American Association of Science and Michigan State University, Krajcik is a principal investigator in a materials development project that aims to design, develop and test the next generation of middle school curriculum materials to engage students in obtaining deep understanding of science content and practices.

Krajcik has authored and co-authored more than 100 manuscripts and makes frequent presentations at international, national and regional conferences that focus on his research as well as presentations that translate research findings into classroom practice.

A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and past president of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Krajcik currently serves as a Weston Visiting Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

Krajcik also codirects the Center for Highly Interactive Classrooms, Curriculum and Computing in Education at the University of Michigan.

Krajcik taught high school chemistry for seven years in Milwaukee, Wis., before receiving his Ph.D. in science education from the University of Iowa in 1986.

The LPSL is a research laboratory comprised of research scientists, professors and more than a dozen collaborators, based in UGA’s College of Education.