Research:

My program of research addresses how people learn through interaction and conversations. Theoretically, I am attempting to reconcile cognitive and sociocultural theories of teaching and learning by simultaneously considering individual cognitive processes, external representations, and social discourse—not as separate factors, but as interdependent aspects of learning and development.

My work is grounded in the disciplines of mathematics and science education.  Additionally, my work explores how to use technology to spark and support productive conversations in classrooms.

Empirically the model of learning I am developing is driven by studies that examine:

1. •The ways in which material, representational tools (e.g., visual and computationally enhanced displays, symbol systems, etc.) shape the mathematical activity, reasoning, and learning of students
   

2. •The ways individuals construct meaning around these tools and representations
   

3. •The ways that mathematical discourse and discourse communities shape the learning process
   
   

Current Projects:

Semiotic Pivots and Activity Spaces for Elementary Science (SPASES): Using computer vision, Wii remotes, RFID tags, and other sensing technologies, this project aims to engage first and second grade students in learning the physics of force and motion.  Desktop simulations have made force and motion accessible to middle school students.  Our goal is to use students physical actions in the world as an interface to computer simulations to make these ideas accessible to even younger students.

Young students are good at pretend play.  The defining feature of pretend play is not that it is fun (although it often is).  The defining feature of play is that it has both an imaginary situation and a set of rules.  It is focus on a set of rules that makes play an interesting “pivot “ and allow us to put play to work.  Like play, the physical world (and computer simulations of force and motion) follow a set of rules.  SPASES uses computer-enhanced, embodied play as a means for children to uncover the hidden rules of the physical world.

Making Science (with Bill Sandoval): The project will engage students in data modeling and scientific argumentation about our local environment.  Using scientific data and sensor technology from UCLA’s Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) Making Science will advance two important goals for elementary science education. First, research on cognitive development convincingly demonstrates that young children are capable of much more ambitious science instruction than they typically receive. Making Science will provide such instruction. Second, the project will engage students in science the way that scientists do—coming up with hypotheses and using data to argue for and support one’s claims.   Students will be using a special software interface to examine data about the James Reserve of Idyllwild California (www.jamesreserve.edu) using the CENS sensor network.  They will be able to generate hypotheses about issues such as micro-climates and bird nesting patterns and then follow up on those hypotheses by examining the data.  Engaging in real inquiry projects like this, instead of simply reading about the dessert in a book will give students an experience that is much more like the work of actual scientists.

Completed projects:

Community Mapping: In a study of high school students using Geographic Information Systems to study the effects of segregation and institutional racism on the educational resources and attainment of their own community, I am investigating the tensions between learning statistics and using statistics within the larger context of activism and the rhetoric of political persuasion.

Inventing Mapping: In a study of 7-8 year old students competence at inventing and revising representations of larger scale spaces, I have investigated the tensions between invention and conventionalization of representational forms and how the teacher orchestrates these different types of discussions. Particular attention is paid to the role of gesture in student teacher interactions that animate the representations.

Enyedy, N. (2005). Inventing Mapping: Creating cultural forms to solve collective problems. Cognition and Instruction 23(4), 427 - 466.

Negotiated Representational  Mediators  (NRMs) and Meta-Representational Competence (MRC): In a study of 5-7 year old students' ideas about what makes for a good science representation, we synthesized the notion of Meta-Representational Competence (MRC)--the ideas and resources which enable and constrain students as they create, modify, select, critique, learn, and understand representations--with that of representation as a form of practice. Analysis of pre and post interviews as well as video analysis of students' representational activities reveal that when creating or evaluating a representation, these students negotiate between their personal preferences, the constraints and affordances of the activity in which they are engaged, and their understanding of the content being studied. In addition, the rules that students come to follow, their understanding of the content, and the way in which they choose to represent their understanding of the content are all influenced by their ongoing participation within the classroom activities.

Danish, J. A., & Enyedy, N. (2007).  Negotiated Representational Mediators: How Young Children Decide What to Include in Their Science Representations. Science Education, 91(1), 1-35.

Probability Inquiry Environment (PIE): In two studies focused on elementary and middle school probability I have investigated the interplay between small group work and whole class discussion that lead to the successful appropriation of representational forms and practices. In a follow up study PIE was tested in an English Language Learner classroom and we are currently studying how the discourse environment differed in the second study.

GLOBE: In a study of two East Los Angeles classrooms collecting and using data to study the local and global environmental conditions, I analyze the ways in which different discourse communities develop and differentially effect student outcomes. Additionally, in this project we are also trying to explore the role that the teacher’s professional identities played in the formation of these different discourse environments.

Enyedy, N., and Goldberg, J. (2004). Inquiry in interaction: Developing classroom communities for understanding through social interaction. Journal for Research in Science Teaching 41, 905-935.

Enyedy, N., Goldberg, J., and Welsh K.  (2006). Complex dilemmas of identity and practice. Science Education 90(1) 68-93.