Assistant Professor
Instructional Systems Technology
(812) 856-8462
sbarab@indiana.edu

See also: Sasha Barab's personal home page

Ph.D. University of Connecticut, 1997

My research has focused on establishing rich learning environments, frequently with the aid of technology, that are both engaging and complex, potentially assisting students in learning the "whats" in a manner that provides insights into the "whys."  Much of this work has built on current literature regarding situated cognition and focused on the use of multimedia as one practical means of connecting classroom knowledge to its functional and social context.  In contrast to pedagogies that suggest authenticity for an individual can be prescribed to a learner by the instructor, I deny the legitimacy of preauthentication and, instead, conceive authenticity as an emergent process that occurs as individuals engage in practices of value to themselves and to a community of practice.  In addition to this design focus, my research has focused on developing research methods for capturing cognition in situ within the context of intentional learning environments, specifically with the goal of thematizing for the field commonalties and differences in theoretical assumptions and methods with respect to situative perspectives of what it means to know and learn.

An Ecological Focus

At the very core of the traditional pedagogy is the polarization of the learner and the learning context. Such polarization inevitably leads to the production of impoverished knowledge (inert knowledge), which is knowledge that can be recalled when students are explicitly requested to do so, but is not something that can be readily applied to relevant real world situations. As a researcher and an educator, I have been engaged in an epistemological reflection regarding human learning and development. As such, my research has primarily been concerned with the building as well as the testing of the crucial components of a new paradigm of human development, namely, the ecological paradigm. This new model stands in sharp contrast to the traditional Cartesian paradigm which lies at the very root of conventional pedagogy.

Cartesian paradigm As suggested in the illustration below, the Cartesian model separates the individual (knower) from the environment (known). Such a model leads to the belief that knowledge refers to a self-sufficient substance that can be understood independently from the environmental context in which it was learned.  Polarizing learner and learning context

Ecological paradigm The ecological model situates the learner within the learning context. Grounded in current principles of self-organization and systems theory, this model contextualizes (or ecologizes) the learning situation. Click here for an in-press manuscript about the ecological paradigm. Coupling the learner with the environment.

Barab, S. A. (Ed.). (in press). Special issue: Theoretical Assumptions and Methods for Researching Cognition Situated in Intentional Learning Environments.
To appear in The Journal of The Learning Sciences.

Barab, S. A., Cherkes-Julkowski, M., Swenson, R., Garrett. S., Shaw, R. E., & Young, M. (in press). Principles of self-organization: Ecologizing the learner-facilitator system.
To appear in The Journal of The Learning Sciences.

Barab, S. A. (in press). Commentary: Human-Field Interaction as Mediated by Mobile Computers. To appear in T. Koschmann, R. Hall, & N. Miyake (eds.)
Computer Supported Collaborative Learning. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Young, M. F., & Barab, S. (in press). Perception of the raison d'etre in anchored instruction: An ecological psychology perspective. 
To appear in the Journal of Educational Computing Research.

Barab, S. A., & Mojica, A. (in press). Ecologizing instruction through integrated Units. 
To appear in the Middle School Journal.

Barab, S. A., & Duffy, T. (in press). From practice fields to communities of practice. 
To appear in D. Jonassen & S. Land (Eds.),Theoretical Foundations of Learning Environments. LEA.

Barab, S. A., & Landa, A. (1997). Designing effective interdisciplinary anchors.
Educational Leadership, 54, 52-55.

Barab, S. A., Bowdish, B. E., & Lawless, K. A. (1997). Hypermedia navigation: Profiles of hypermedia users.
Educational Technology Research and Development, 45(3), 23-42.

Young, M. F., Kulikowich, J. M., & Barab, S. A. (1997).  The unit of analysis for situated1 assessment.
Instructional Science, 25, 133-150.

Barab, S. A., Fajen, B. R., Kulikowich, J. M., & Young, M. F. (1996).  Assessing hypermedia navigation through Pathfinder: Prospects and limitations. 
Journal of Educational Computing Research, 15(3), 185-205.