Dr. Marina Bers
Professor
Department of Child Study and Human Development
Tufts University
United States of America
Biography
The DevTech research group at Tufts University, directed by Prof. Marina Umaschi Bers, aims to promote STEAM learning for young children through theoretical contributions, design of new technologies, teaching materials and strategies for professional development and community engagement, and empirical research to inform sustainable and scalable evidence-based programs for young children with a focus on computational thinking and engineering. Our research is strongly inspired by two theoretical bodies of research: the constructionist theory of learning developed by pioneer in the field of educational technology, Seymour Papert, who was the doctoral advisor of Prof. Marina Umaschi Bers at the MIT Media Lab. The second, positive youth development, as conceptualized by applied developmental sciences. These two bodies of research inform our positive technological development framework. A description of the PTD framework can be found in Marina Bers' book Designing Digital Experiences for Positive Youth Development: From Playpen to Playground.
Research Interest
Math, Science, Technology and Engineering Initiative Educational technology, new technologies to support positive youth development, collaborative virtual, environments for young children and teachers, impact of new technologies for personal, social and moral development, design of innovative human-computer interfaces for learning and teaching, use of technology in hospitals, museums, schools and communities
Publications
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Loparev, A., Sullivan, A., Verish, C., Westendorf, L., Davis, J., Flemings, M., Bers, M.U., & Shaer, O. (2017). BacToMars: Creative Engagement with Bio-Design for Children. In the proceedings of the ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC) 2017. Stanford, CA, USA.
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Sullivan, A., Bers, M.U., Mihm, C. (2017). Imagining, Playing, & Coding with KIBO: Using KIBO Robotics to Foster Computational Thinking in Young Children. In the proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Thinking Education, 2017. Wanchai, Hong Kong.
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Leidl, K., Bers, M.U., Mihm, C. (2017). Programming with ScratchJr: a review of the first year of user analytics. In the proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Thinking Education, 2017. Wanchai, Hong Kong.
