Information for:
- Print this Page
- Text Size
- Email this Page
Department
Teaching and Learning
Office Location
244 & 165 Wyatt
Mailing Address
Peabody #330
230 Appleton Place
Nashville, TN 37203-5721
Direct Phone
615-322-8135
Fax Number
615-322-8999
Email Address
Leona Schauble
Professor of Education
Ph.D., Columbia University, 1988
Research Area
The development of scientific thinking; theory change; modeling approaches to science and mathematics; professional development of teachers
Short Biography
Professor Schauble is a cognitive developmental psychologist with research interests in the relations between everyday reasoning and more formal, culturally-supported, and schooled forms of thinking, such as scientific and mathematical reasoning. Her research concerns topics such as belief change in contexts of scientific experimentation, strategy change, and causal inference. In 1991, she received a National Academy of Education Spencer Fellowship to investigate developmental changes in how children and adults understand the goals and strategies of scientific experimentation. This work generated findings concerning how people learn to design informative experiments and "read" patterns of evidence, including covariation, lack of covariation, and correlations between variables and outcomes.
A second important theme in Professor Schauble's research is the design and study of instruction. Shortly after completing her undergraduate degree, she joined the staff developing Sesame Street at the Children's Television Workshop. Her subsequent fifteen years at CTW provided practical experience in research and the design of education. In 1987, after completing a Ph.D. in Developmental and Educational Psychology at Columbia University, she joined the staff of the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh as a postdoctoral fellow, where she continued as a Research Scientist until 1992. At the University of Wisconsin and subsequently at Vanderbilt University, she hascontinued studies of learning in both informal and formal educational settings. For example, with The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, the world's largest children's museum, Schauble assisted on an NSF-funded project to design and construct an 11,000-foot science gallery that reflects research findings about the science knowledge and learning of six- to ten-year-old children.
Her current research focus, in collaboration with Professor Richard Lehrer, is on the origins and development of model-based reasoning in school mathematics and science. In this project, researchers work collaboratively with teachers on an extended basis to generate reform in teaching and learning of mathematics and science, at levels from elementary through middle school. As participating teachers collectively develop an educational agenda that emphasizes representational competence and modeling, researchers conduct studies that track the long-tem development of forms of epistemology that would otherwise be very difficult or impossible to study.
Learn More about Leona Schauble:
Courses Taught | Selected Publications
Awards | CV | Media Mentions
Selected Publications
Books
Schauble, L., & Glaser, R., Eds. (1996). Innovations in learning: New environments in education. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L., Eds. (2001). Investigating real data in the classroom: Expanding children's understanding of math and science. New York: Teachers College Press.
National Research Council (2006). Taking science to school (Washington, DC: National Academy Press).
Book Chapters
Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2006). Cultivating model-based reasoning in science education. In K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 371-388). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2007). Contrasting emerging conceptions of distribution in contexts of error and natural variation. In M. Lovett & P. Shah (Eds.). Thinking with data (pp. 149-176). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schauble, L. (in press). Three questions about development. In R. A. Duschl & R.E. Grandy (Eds.), Teaching scientific inquiry: Recommendations for research and application (pp. 50-56). Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers.
Journal Articles
Schauble, L., Leinhardt, G., & Martin, L. (1998). "Organizing a cumulative research agenda in informal learning contexts." Journal of Museum Education, 22(2 & 3), 3-7.
Penner, D.E., Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (1998). "From physical models to biomechanical systems: A design-based modeling approach." Journal of the Learning Sciences, 7(3&4), 429-449.
Gleason, M. E., & Schauble, L. (1999). "Parents' assistance of their children's scientific reasoning." Cognition and Instruction, 17(4), 343-378.
Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2000). "The development of model-based reasoning." Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 21(1), 39-48. Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2000).
"Inventing data structures for representational purposes: Elementary grade students' classification models." Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 2(1&2), 51-74.
Petrosino, A., Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2003). "Structuring error and experimental variation as distribution in the fourth grade." Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 5 (2&3), 131-156.
Cobb, P., Confre, J., diSessa, A., Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2003). "Design experiments in education." Educational Researcher, 32(1), 9-13.
Chapters
Lehrer, R., Schauble, L., & Petrosino, A. J. ( 2001). Reconsidering the role of experiment in science education. In K. Crowley, C. Schunn, & T. Okada (Eds.). Designing for science: Implications from everyday, classroom, and professional settings (PP. 251-277). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2001). Similarity of form and substance: From inscriptions to models. In D. Klahr & S. Carver (Eds.). Cognition and instruction: 25 years of progress (pp. 39-74). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbam Associates.
Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2002). Symbolic communication in mathematics and science: Co-constituting inscription and thought. In Byrnes, J., & Amsel, E., Eds., Language, literacy, and cognitive development: The development and consequences of symbolic communication (pp. 167- 192). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schauble, L., Gleason, M., Lehrer, R., Bartlett, K., Petrosino, A., Allen, A., Clinton, C., Ho, E., Jones, M., Lee, Y., Phillips, J., Seigler, J., & Street, J. (2002). Supporting science learning in museums. In Leinhardt, G., Crowley, K., & Knutson, K. (Eds.) Learning conversations: Explanation and identity in museums (pp. 425-452). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Schauble, L. (2002). Cloaking objects in epistemological practices. In S. G. Paris (Ed.), Perspectives on object-centered learning in museums (pp. 235-241). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lehrer , R., & Schauble, L. (2003). Origins and evolution of model-based reasoning in mathematics and science. In H. Doerr and R. Lesh (Eds.), Beyond constructivism: A models and modeling perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (in press). Developing modeling and argument in elementary grades. In t. A. Romberg, T.P. Carpenter, & F. Dremock (Eds.), Understanding mathematics and science matters. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.