Program Description

Current educational systems fail too many students by limiting their access to meaningful learning opportunities and by treating cultural, racial, linguistic, class and other differences as deficits, rather than as resources for learning. At the same time, children and youth in communities, with the support and guidance of teachers in schools and mentors in out of school contexts, are engaged in hopeful efforts to improve conditions for learning and create more livable, sustainable communities. Faculty and students in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Educational Psychology and Learning Sciences PhD program study how people learn in the context of organizing for more equitable, sustainable social futures. Researchers consider how the practice of research can inform social change.

The Educational Psychology and Learning Sciences (EPSY) PhD program prepares graduate students to research and inform collective efforts to improve conditions of learning, particularly for young people in non-dominant communities. The program emphasizes:

• How a strong foundation in psychological perspectives on education and human development can inform efforts to improve conditions for learning
• The need to go beyond psychological perspectives to interpret learning and development in social, cultural, and historical contexts
• Social justice as a central concern in studying and informing efforts to improve conditions of learning
• Humanistic approaches to research that are drawn on interpretive, phenomenological, and social practice theories of human action

Students work with faculty members who conduct research in a range of settings, including schools, afterschool programs, museums, community organizations, workplaces and grassroots social movements. Examples of current faculty projects that students may join include:

• a study that engages secondary students in improving their schools through participatory action research
• a study of learning within the local foods movement
• a longitudinal study of elementary students’ engagement with science in and out of schools.
• a study of an afterschool program grounded in a sustainable model of community-university partnership

Coursework provides students with a strong foundation in educational psychology, cultural psychology, social theory, and mixed methods research.

Like other programs in educational psychology and learning sciences, the program at CU-Boulder provides students with a foundation in psychological perspectives on education and in design-based research methods.

The faculty aim to prepare PhD students in the program for careers in research. These include possible careers as faculty members in educational psychology and learning sciences programs at other colleges and universities and as full-time researchers within non-profit organizations or school systems.

• Educational and Psychological Studies (EPSY)
  

Program Faculty

Kris Gutiérrez, Professor and Inaugural Provost Chair, (PhD English and Education, University of Colorado Boulder)
Contact: 303-492-8450, e-mail: kris.gutierrez@colorado.edu
Research areas: Designed learning environments, particularly STEM-oriented after-school clubs for students from non-dominant communities/English Learners; cultural historical activity theories of learning and development; re-mediation; literacy; teacher education

Representative publications:
Gutiérrez, K. & Vossoughi, S. (2010). “Lifting off the Ground to return anew”: Documenting and Designing for Equity and Transformation through Social Design Experiments, Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 100-117.
Gutiérrez, K., Morales, P. L., & Martinez, D. (2009). Re-mediating Literacy:  Culture, Difference, and Learning for students from non-dominant communities. Review of Research in Educational Research, 33, 212-245.

Susan Jurow, Associate Professor (PhD Education, University of California, Berkeley)
Contact: 303-492-6557, e-mail: Susan.Jurow@Colorado.edu
Research areas: Learning and teaching of disciplinary discourses; identity development in social practice; design of learning environments; how people learn across multiple contexts

Representative publications:
Jurow, A.S., Hall, R., & Ma, J. (2008). Expanding the disciplinary expertise of a middle school mathematics classroom: Re-contextualizing student models in conversations with visiting specialists. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 17(3), 338-380.
Jurow, A.S., & Pierce, D. (2011). Exploring the relations between “soul” and “role”: Learning from the Courage to Lead. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 18(1), 26-42.

Ben Kirshner (Admissions Contact), Assistant Professor and Program Chair (PhD Psychological Studies in Education, Stanford University)
Contact: 303-492-6122, e-mail: Ben.Kirshner@Colorado.edu
Research areas: Youth development, adolescent civic engagement and sociopolitical development; learning environments that engage young people in activism and social change; learning outside of school; participatory research

Representative publications:
Kirshner, B., Pozzoboni, K., & Jones, H. (2011). Learning how to manage bias: A case study of youth participatory action research. Applied Developmental Science, 15(3), 140-155.
Kirshner, B. (2008). Guided participation in three youth activism organizations: Facilitation, apprenticeship, and joint work. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 17(1), 60-101.

Kevin O’Connor, Assistant Professor (PhD Psychology, Clark University)
Contact: 303-492-8554, e-mail: Kevin.OConnor@Colorado.edu
Research areas: Communication, cognition, and learning; discourse analysis; learning in social movements; engineering education; sociocultural theories of learning and development

Representative publications:
O’Connor, K. & Allen, A. (2010).  Learning as the organizing of social futures.  W.R. Penuel & K. O’Connor (Eds.), Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 108, 1: Learning research as a human science, pp. 160-175.
O’Connor, K., Hanny, C., & Lewis, C.  (2011). Doing “business as usual”: Dynamics of voice in community organizing talk. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 42, (2), 154-171.

Bill Penuel, Professor (PhD Psychology, Clark University)
Contact: 303-492-7749, e-mail: william.penuel@Colorado.edu
Research areas: Teacher learning and organizational processes that shape the implementation of educational policies, school curricula, and after-school programs; science education; teacher professional development in science; geography learning

Representative publications:
Penuel, W. R., Fishman, B. J., Cheng, B., & Sabelli, N. (2011). Organizing research and development at the intersection of learning, implementation, and design. Educational Researcher, 40(7), 331-337.
Penuel, W. R., Gallagher, L. P., & Moorthy, S. (2011). Preparing teachers to design sequences of instruction in Earth science: A comparison of three professional development programs. American Educational Research Journal, 48(4), 996-1025.

Philip Langer, Professor Emeritus (PhD Education, University of Connecticut)
Contact: 303-492-8747, e-mail: Philip.Langer@Colorado.edu.
Research Interests: Feedback, Psychological Dimensions of Military Leadership, Special Education