April 18, 2023
Dr. Erin Walker is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, with a joint appointment as a research scientist in the Learning Research and Development Center. Walker’s work examines how “intelligent support and other intelligent technologies can support student learning, with a particular emphasis on social learning.”
“The vast majority of what I do is look at how people learn together, how people learn in conversation with virtual agents, and then consider what AI or machine learning techniques we can use to enhance that process.”
Walker has been investigating how people learn for nearly her entire career as a researcher.
“As I’ve advanced in my career, I think it’s become even more apparent to me how important understanding the social context of learning is," she said. "Where are people learning? Is it in the classroom? In an after-school program? At home? Who are they learning with? I think we have to understand that before we think about where AI fits in the picture. I’m really passionate about starting from a place where people are learning together, or learning about the social context, and then learning about what AI is doing in that ecosystem. When I first started, I was very focused on content. Model the way that people think. Provide support to help them master particular content. And that is important. But as my thinking has evolved, it feels like none of that matters if you’re not aligning yourself with people’s interests and passions and perspectives, and acting in ways that are going to keep them engaged in what you’re presenting to them.”
Walker said that her work builds upon research in intelligent tutoring and collaborative learning, putting them into conversation with insights from culturally responsive design.
“Culturally responsive pedagogies foreground learners' identities in the design of new curricula and technologies," she said.
Walker said that her research agenda has “focused increasingly on more equitable educational technologies,” stating that she has been “moving much more into the culturally responsive design” aspect of her work.
“I think that’s an important part of the picture because I think there are a lot of people who have been historically left out of these kinds of conversations and I think it’s important to bring them into them, as well as distribute power around who decides what these technologies will look like,” she said.
Walker said that in her “Foundations of Human-Computer Interaction” course, which focuses on user experience, students will “learn about how to interact with users, how to test the technology you’re building, and how to test the technology before building.” Walker’s classroom is “flipped,” meaning that students watch recorded lectures prior to attending class, so that they “can practice some of the concepts from lecture videos and then have a whole class discussion about what did and didn’t work. And it is all very student-driven in terms of what they observed about what they are doing.” Concerning the connection between her pedagogical approach and research, Walker said that class-wide discussions and students’ prior experiences are key drivers of learning in her classroom, adding that her research has allowed her to “bring a lot of new ideas about how people learn effectively into how I structure my classes.”
“I imagine the future holds more interdisciplinary collaborations, and idea exchange around how edtech is built and deployed,” she said.
--Daniel Beresheim