Educational Innovations: Trapped in the Zone of Wishful...

EducationalInnovations:TrappedintheZoneofWishfulThinking

PresentationbyLouisGomez,ProfessorofEducationUCLAGraduateSchoolofEducation&InformationStudies

Monday,June5,2017

12:00-1:15pm,Education2010

Abstract: Certainly, since the publication of the Coleman Report, we haverecognized the inequalities that pervade American education. We haveattemptedto interruptthe impact inequalitythrougheducational innovations–technological,andotherwise.Theresultsofmanyofthesereforms,todate,hasbeenspottyinthatwehavebrightspotsofsuccess,andthesesameinnovationsfail to help all children.My talk addresses some of the reasons for the spottyperformanceandexploressomeapproachestoredressingthisstateofaffairs.

Bio:LouisGomez isaProfessorofEducationatUCLA.Histeaching

and research interests include school improvement,organizationallearning, application of computing and networking technology toteachingand learning,applied cognitive science,human-computerinteraction,andcurriculumdesign.Gomez,whoearnedhisPh.D.inpsychologyfromUCBerkeley,wasfirstdrawntopracticalresearchthat is theoretically rich during his time in the late 1980s as amemberoftechnicalstaffatBellLaboratoriesinNewJersey.Whileat Bell, Gomez worked on projects applying cognitive science tothings like creating technology to bring the Internet intoclassrooms.HereportsthathisexperienceatBellLabsgrewintoadeep interest inunderstandinghowcomplex systems,madeupofpeopleandtechnologies,likeschools,canbeimprovedsothattheycan better support the life chances of the people they serve.Gomez’shonorsincludeservingastheMacArthurFoundationChairin Digital Media & Learning and as senior fellow of the CarnegieFoundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He was elected totheNationalAcademyofEducationin2013.