"Video Research in the Learning Sciences "is a comprehensive exploration of key theoretical, methodological, and technological advances concerning uses of digital video-as-data in the learning sciences as a way of knowing about learning, teaching, and educational processes. The aim of the contributors, a community of scholars using video in their own work, is to help usher in video scholarship and supportive technologies, and to mentor video scholars, so that video research will meet its maximum potential to contribute to the growing knowledge base about teaching and learning.

This volume contributes deeply to both to the science of learning through in-depth video studies of human interaction in learning environments-- whether classrooms or other contexts-- and to the uses of video for creating descriptive, explanatory, or expository accounts of learning and teaching. It is designed around four themes-- each with a cornerstone chapter that introduces and synthesizes the cluster of chapters related to it:
*Theoretical frameworks for video research;
*Video research on peer, family, and informal learning;
*Video research on classroom and teacher learning; and
*Video collaboratories and technological futures.

"Video Research in the Learning Sciences "is intended for researchers, university faculty, teacher educators, and graduate students in education, and for anyone interested in how knowledge is expanded using video-based technologies for inquiries about learning and teaching.

Visit the Web site affiliated with this book: http: //www.videoresearch.org

Interdisciplinary Collaboration calls attention to a serious need to study the problems and processes of interdisciplinary inquiry, to reflect on the current state of scientific knowledge regarding interdisciplinary collaboration, and to encourage research that studies interdisciplinary cognition in relation to the ecological contexts in which it occurs. It contains reflections and research on interdisciplinarity found in a number of different contexts by practitioners and scientists from a number of disciplines and several chapters represent attempts by cognitive scientists to look critically at the cognitive science enterprise itself. Representing all of the seven disciplines listed in the official logo of the Cognitive Science Society and its journal--anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology--this book is divided into three parts: *Part I sets the stage by providing three broad overviews of literature and theory on interdisciplinary research and education. *Part II examines varied forms of interdisciplinarity in situ rather than the more traditional macrolevel interview or survey approaches to studying group work. *Part III consists of noted cognitive scientists who reflect on their experiences and turn the analytical lenses of their own disciplines to the critical examination of cognitive science itself as a case study in interdisciplinary collaboration. Interdisciplinary Collaboration is intended for scholars at the graduate level and beyond in cognitive science and education.

Highlighting and illustrating several important and interesting theoretical trends that have emerged in the continuing development of instructional technology, this book's organizational framework is based on the notion of two opposing camps. One evolves out of the intelligent tutoring movement, which employs artificial-intelligence technologies in the service of student modeling and precision diagnosis, and the other emerges from a constructivist/developmental perspective that promotes exploration and social interaction, but tends to reject the methods and goals of the student modelers. While the notion of opposing camps tends to create an artificial rift between groups of researchers, it represents a conceptual distinction that is inherently more interesting and informative than the relatively meaningless divide often drawn between "intelligent" and "unintelligent" instructional systems.
An evident trend is that researchers in both "camps" view their computer learning environments as "cognitive tools" that can enhance learning, performance, and understanding. Cognitive tools are objects provided by the instructional environment that allow students to incorporate new auxiliary methods or symbols into their social problem solving which otherwise would be unavailable. A final section of the book represents researchers who are assimilating and accommodating the wisdom and creativity of their neighbors from both camps, perhaps forming the look of technology for the future. When the idea of model tracing in a computer-based environment is combined with appreciation for creative mind-extension cognitive tools and for how a community of learners can facilitate learning, a camp is created where AI technologists and social constructivist learning theorists can feel equally at home.