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Faculty Labs

As an MTePP student, you'll have access to a range of research labs dedicated to advancing education, policy, and human development. From learning sciences and early childhood development to social policy and technology’s impact on society, SESP labs offer opportunities to engage with faculty research. Through lab events and discussions, you'll gain valuable insights that shape policy and practice.
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Reading Comprehension Lab

Comprehending and learning from texts we read, conversations we participate in, maps we study, and presentations we view requires unlocking the meanings associated with ideas, words, images, icons, and grammar. Research in our laboratory focuses on the nature of such comprehension by describing the activities and processes that comprise it. We also seek to facilitate these activities and processes by understanding comprehension difficulties and, with that knowledge, designing effective learning interventions.

Affiliated SESP Faculty

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Nichole Pinkard works with Researcher

Digital Youth Network (DYN)

The Digital Youth Network (DYN) is a hybrid digital literacy program that creates learning opportunities for underserved youth, both in the classroom and outside of school. 

Affiliated SESP Faculty

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Spatial Thinking and Reasoning Lab

Students from both Learning Sciences and Psychology share research on cognitive development, symbol and map understanding, spatial thinking, STEM learning, and attitudes toward spatial thinking and STEM. Students in our research group do both qualitative and quantitative research in a wide variety informal and formal learning environments and with a wide variety of age groups.

Affiliated SESP Faculty

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Life-Span Development Lab

We examine pathways towards happy and healthy development across the life span with a focus on emotions in individuals and couples. Our research combines insights and paradigms from affective, life-span developmental, and relationship science. We use multiple methods (e.g., autonomic physiology, behavioral observations, subjective emotional experience assessments, linguistic markers, neuroimaging), age-diverse samples (e.g., from adolescence to late life), diverse study designs (e.g., experimental, longitudinal), and single-subjects and dyadic approaches (e.g., studying couples, parents and children, and friendship dyads).

Affiliated SESP Faculty

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Technological Innovations for Inclusive Learning and Teaching (TIILT) Lab

The Technological Innovations for Inclusive Learning and Teaching (TIILT) Lab aims to improve learning opportunities for students from under-served communities. Our work with technological innovations includes co-designing activities with teachers and learners; creating interfaces that broaden participation in meaningful learning experience; and tools and analytic techniques for studying and supporting complex learning environments.

Affiliated SESP Faculty

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TIDAL Lab (Tangible Interaction Design and Learning Laboratory)

TIDAL Lab is a team of designers, artists, learning scientists, and computer scientists at Northwestern University. Our research creates and studies innovative technology-based learning experiences. We take a cautious but optimistic stance towards technology in a process that tightly couple research and design. Our work on the TunePad project introduces students to digital music production using Python code.

Affiliated SESP Faculty

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