Professor, University of Minnesota
Keisha Varma is a professor in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. Her research examines learning and cognition and teacher knowledge development in technology-enhanced classroom settings. She is currently looking at ways to leverage psychological methodologies to understand changes in teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and their representations of effective teaching practice. She earned her PhD at Vanderbilt University. Varma is a representative of the NSF-funded project, Supporting Teachers and Encouraging Lifelong Learning: A Web-Based Integrated Science Environment (WISE).
Technology Enhanced Science Instruction via the WISE Learning Environment
Building on years of successful research and development, WISE (The Web-based Inquiry Science Environment) is a powerful, open-source online learning environment that supports guided inquiry, embedded assessments, peer collaboration, interactive computer models, and teacher customization (Lee, Linn, Varma& Liu, 2010; Gerard, Spitulnik, & Linn, 2010). WISE 4.0 has been developed since 2008 and publicly available in 2010. It allows curriculum designers, researchers, and teachers worldwide to design, customize, share, and enact their digital curricula using the WISE platform. Students observe, analyze, experiment, and reflect as they navigate WISE projects. Teachers guide and evaluate the process using a suite of classroom-based and online tools. Read more
