Learning Sciences Research Institute > About LSRI

What is the Learning Sciences Research Institute

The Learning Sciences focus on questions concerning how people learn through interaction with the objects and people in their environments. A key assumption of Learning Sciences research is that what and how an individual learns are as much a function of the social, cultural, and environmental contexts of learning as they are a function of the characteristics of the individual. Its theoretical and methodological grounding draws on multiple disciplines, including anthropology, computer science, education, linguistics, psychology, and sociology. Learning Sciences research attempts to develop evidence-based claims about how people learn that are relevant to theoretical as well as practical problems (e.g., how to take students’ common sense understanding of chemical reactions into account when teaching organic chemistry). Implicit in much of the field’s work is the goal of understanding and improving educational opportunities and outcomes for diverse learners. Understanding and improving environments for learning demands the awareness that learning becomes visible through various artifacts (traces in objects, writing, or other physical form) of the processes and products of learning, including written and oral discourse as well as tangible and electronic semiotic artifacts.