Winter School

Agent-Based Computing in Education: An Epistemological Arc

Course Abstract

What is the relationship between epistemology and technology in the context of educational design? This course attempts to answer this question by tracing an arc through a particular set of histories in educational research, focused on agent-based computing in STEM education. Specifically, we will engage in scholarly conversations about how cognitivist, socio-cultural, democratic and critical theoretical perspectives have shaped (and continue to shape) the design of agent-based computing environments for complex, scientific, disciplinary engagement in educational settings.

For more details, check out http://bit.ly/2RqTmGH

Course Poster: http://bit.ly/2CmxnXb

Registration Link: http://bit.ly/2so5F7E

Contact: santanu@hbcse.tifr.res.in

Last Date of Registration: 31st January, 2019

About the course facilitator

Dr. Pratim Sengupta

Dr. Pratim Sengupta’s research has primary focused on developing, designing and studying agent-based computational systems (modeling platforms, programming languages and simulations) that can make complex scientific phenomena accessible to newcomers to STEM disciplines through democratizing computational modeling. His recent work, along with Dr. Marie Claire Shanahan, focuses on developing immersive, open source, “public computing” environments for open science in public spaces and museums. He is the recipient of US National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award, and his public computing installations have been featured as at Museum of Modern Art (New York), Telus SPARK Science Center (Calgary), Bell Studio - National Music Center (Calgary), etc. Until 2015, Dr. Sengupta was a professor at Vanderbilt University, USA, where he co-founded and chaired the Learning Sciences PhD program. He is currently the Research Chair of STEM Education and an Associate Professor of Learning Sciences at University of Calgary, Canada. An alumnus of Northwestern University, USA, I.I.T Kharagpur and Presidency College, Kolkata, Dr. Sengupta is the author of the forthcoming book Voicing Code in STEM: A Dialogical Imagination (MIT Press; Co-authors: Dr. Amanda Dickes, Harvard University and Dr. Amy Farris, Penn State University).