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University Practicum Courses Associated with the
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition

Torrey Pines          Urban Discovery Academy          Town and Country Learning Center      Published Work

The Practicum courses presented on this website have a history that goes back to the early 1980's when Michael Cole and his colleagues at the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition began to conduct research on the design of after school programs for under-achieving elementary school children that were located in community organizations that care for children in the after-school hours. From the beginning, this work involved undergraduates who were interested in learning how to conduct social science research in community settings. Our experience quickly demonstrated that both the children at the community sites and the undergraduates benefited from participation in these activities. We also discovered that it was possible to provide mutually productive activities in a variety of settings so long as the university and community partners were willing to accommodate to each others needs in terms of the timing of the activities, the number of children involved, and the always-slightly-askew institutional schedules of the individual institutions.

Presently this line of work continues as described below drawing upon three distinct community institutions and a number of educational programs at UCSD located in the Communication Department, the Human Development Program, 6th College's CAT124/125 practicum courses, and 199 students from the Psychology Department.

Should you wish to inquire further about these activities, contact Michael Cole (mcole@ucsd.edu).


CAT 124:  Sixth College Practicum at Torrey Pines Elementary back to top

   Started in 1996, The Fifth Dimension site at Torrey Pines Elementary currently consists of two programs. The first    program runs during school hours with all of the 5^th graders in the school, the other is conducted during
   afterschool hours primarily for children bused in from a lower-income, largely Latino, neighborhood south of I-5.      The two implementations permit an analysis of the dynamics of activity within a 5thDimension as a function of   
   ethnic group origins of the children and formal vs informal institutional arrangements. The Fifth Dimensions at          Torrey Pines are characterized by high parent and teacher involvement and a high level of collaboration between 
    parents, teachers, and university faculty. These networks of collaboration has made it possible to overcome a            common weakness of Fifth Dimensions as research tools—we have not regularly had access to children’s
   academic performance. At Torrey Pines, however the relatively strong administrative structure has played a
   crucial role. The principle, on his own, did the kinds of quantitative comparative analyses we ourselves required.
   It was he who came to us gloating about the evidence of the exceptional efficacy of the program.

   Undergraduate students (approx. 20) who participate in the afterschool program at Torrey Pines Elementary School are part of an ongoing research and education program that targets the needs of low-income Latino children.  They work with children from Kindergarten to 5th grade in activities that combine learning and play, write weekly ethnographic fieldnotes about their work in the program and read and discuss relevant articles.  They also design their own research project/paper related to their work at the site. Students also write a final reflection paper describing their overall experience at the after-school center. The Program meets Wednesday afternoons for 4 hours: 12:30-12:45 Class discussion; 12:45-3:30; lunch and play with the kids; 3:30-4:30 Class discussion. For a more in-depth description go here.
 
Instructors: Mike Cole, Emma Johnson
Site supervisor -Virginia Gordon

Sample Course Syllabus

Sample student reflection 1

CAT 124/125: Practicum Course at San Diego Urban Discovery Academy  back to top

    Course Description: Urban Discovery Academy is a new Charter Elementary School (K-8) directly across
    the street from Balboa Park in San Diego.  In this class approximately 20 undergraduates work after school     two afternoons per week, helping inner-city kids with their homework and one-on-one enrichment        
    activities.  These are arranged around the undergraduates own personal interests and skills, like digital
    media projects, visual or performing arts, science explorations, sports activities and more.  Readings on    
    social theory, communication, and human development are assigned that are directly related to the            
    experiences in the program and are discussed weekly at the site.  Undergraduates are encouraged to        
    investigate a research question of their own making, one that is directly related to their major, to write    
    weekly field notes, and to write a final paper at the end of the quarter. 

    Undergraduates at the site have the opportunity to test the social theories that they are encountering on
    campus in ‘real-life’ settings, and to find meaningful applications for the knowledge they are acquiring.   
    Students at the site develop their organization and communication skills, learning to work as part of an    
    integrated team that includes elementary school children and their families, other undergraduates in the    
    program, local school staff, and UCSD faculty and researchers. 

Through the field notes, which are read and responded to by other students and the course instructors, students are able to
document their work and to chart their own development in the course.  In addition, undergraduates have the opportunity to                             participate in original research and to write formal research papers.

Instructors: Michael Cole & Deborah Downing Wilson
Site Coordinator: Jennifer Pond
Course Prerequisites: Junior or Senior status and prior consent of instructor.

Sample Syllabus

Sample Student Reflections: Sample 1    Sample 2






Media and the Design of Social Learning Contexts (COMT/HDP 115) back to top

    Course Description: Media and the Design of Social Learning Environments is a practicum
    course in which 20 students are (a) taught cognitive ethnographic field methods and theories of      human development and communication, and (b) asked to draw on these approaches in the    
    design and implementation of a field research project (typically case studies or projects focusing     on the design of activities that mix play and learning).  The aim of this course is not only to
    teach students how to conduct social science field research in a skillful and ethical way, but also
    to connect them with the local community in a way that helps them recognize the    
    interdependence between this community and the communities to which the students belong.         Students are required to visit (4hrs/week) an after-school learning center located in a    
    federally-subsidized housing complex in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in         Southeastern San Diego. At the center the students mentor K-12 youth. This includes helping         the youth with their schoolwork as well as engaging them in a variety of enrichment activities that are developed by the undergraduates enrolled in the course (e.g. informal science education activities that incorporate new technologies, math games, geography club, music and video editing, healthy cooking). For each of their visits to the center, students are asked to write field notes documenting their experiences. They submit these field notes to a password protected database accessible to all of the students enrolled in the course. The course instructor and graduate students affiliated with the class read and comment on these field notes in order to help the students learn to carefully observe and document their own and other’s participation in the ongoing activities at the center. Students are also encouraged to read and comment on their classmates notes. At the end of the quarter the students are asked to use their own and other's field notes as a source of data for their final projects. In addition to their field notes and final projects, students are required to write a final reflection paper describing their overall experience at the after-school center; prepare presentations to explain course readings; complete quizzes on the course readings.

Instructors: Rachel Cody, Michael Cole, Robert Lecusay
Graduate students: Camille Campion, Rachel Cody, David Gonzalez, Robert Lecusay, Tamara Powell, Normita Rodriguez, Ivan Rosero.
Site Coordinator: Ms, Veverly Anderson.

Course Prerequisites: Communication students: must have completed COHI 100 or consent of the instructor. Human Development Students: must have completed HDP 1 or consent of the instructor.

Related Websites: Town and Country Learning Center website showcases the collaborative digital media projects produced by the after-school center youth and the visiting UCSD undergraduate mentors.

Sample Syllabus (Spring 2010)

Sample student papers:  Sample 1    Sample 2

Published Work back to top

Cole, M. & The Distributed Literacy Consortium (2006). The fifth dimension: An after-school program built on diversity. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publications.

Downing-Wilson, D. (2007). Revealing shifts in attitude among undergraduate participants in academic service learning programs. Operant Subjectivity, 30 (1/2).  pdf

Downing-Wilson, D., Lecusay, R. and Cole, M. (in press) Design Experimentation and Mutual Appropriation: Two Strategies for University/Community Collaborative After School Interventions. Theory and Psychology - Special issue on cultural-historical activity theory and interventionist methodology: classical legacy and contemporary developments.   pdf

Lecusay, R., Rossen, L., Cole, M. (2008) Cultural-historical activity theory and the zone of proximal development in the study of idioculture design and implementation. Cognitive Systems Research 5(1&2): 92-103. pdf