The Cognitive Science Seminar is one of the crown jewels of the Institute. It is both a course offering and a public lecture series.
Each semester's Seminar is organized around a different thematic area and offers seminars by national and international experts in the field.
Talks are on Wednesday's from 4 pm to 5 pm and simulcast via Zoom (Spring 2025 only).
Location: ERIC 201/203
Current Semester
The Many Faces of Assessment
In educational environments, most researchers, practitioners, and students see the value and appeal of curriculum and instruction. On the other hand, assessments are often viewed at best as a necessary evil. The terms “test/exam/assessment” conjure images of multiple-choice tests, written exams, or essays. For instructors, tests often represent effort – in scoring and evaluating student performance. The results of high-stakes assessments (state reading/math outcome tests, SAT, ACT, TOEFL) are used to determine a student’s future opportunities – whether they will be promoted to the next grade, get into a college program of their choice, be able to study abroad, or be granted a professional certification. Tests can determine what is taught (and valued) in a course and are consequently the source of the perennial student question – “is this going to be on the test?” Since assessments cannot be separated from values, assessment bias can unfairly impact diverse populations of students based on race, gender identity, socioeconomic status, neurodiversity, and other intertwined individual differences.
However, assessments are and can be more. They come in many shapes and sizes and are deployed in various settings, with different functions and purposes that serve and shape learning and instruction. The data stemming from them often also serves as the engines that drive educational programs and policy. They need not be anxiety-provoking endurance tests. They can be engines of positive change.
The nature of assessment development, delivery, and uses/practices are undergoing rapid change in response to technological advances such as genAI (and LLMs). In the midst of these rapid advances, there are new opportunities for designers and researchers to consider how these new technologies might produce assessments that are fairer, more just, and perhaps even interesting and engaging.
In this seminar series, speakers will probe the many faces of assessment – from design and measurement innovations such as scenario-based, project-based, simulation, portfolio, stealth, or dynamic assessments to large-scale national and worldwide testing programs. The series will place extra emphasis on critical views of current assessment practices and reforms underway to reconceptualize assessments to make them fairer, more equitable, and justice-oriented, in order to better serve diverse audiences and how these practices inform our use of large language models (LLMs) and other forms of AI to design assessments that are reliable, valid, and fair.
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DATE |
SPEAKER |
TITLE |
|
1/22/25 |
Dr. Karen Weddle-West Professor, Educational Psychology and Research College of Education University of Memphis
Dr. John Sabatini, DistinguishedResearch Professor Institute for Intelligent Systems and Department of Psychology University of Memphis
|
Introduction to The Many Faces of Assessment |
|
1/29/25 Remote |
* Dr. Ladislao Salmerón Catedrático de Psicología de la Educación Vicedecano de Movilidad e Intercambio Facultat de Psicología - Universitat de València |
Digital reading literacy and teacher practices: Lessons from large-scale educational assessments |
|
2/5/25 |
Dr. Brian Wright Associate Professor Program Coordinator of Integrated Early Childhood Education College of Education The University of Memphis |
Assessing the Academic and Cultural Brilliance of Black Boys |
|
2/12/25 Remote |
Dr. Michael Nettles Full Professor & Endowed Chair of Predictive Analytics and Psychometrics Department of Psychology Morgan State University |
Remote: History as prologue for contemporary higher education assessment designs |
|
2/19/25 |
Dr. Zuowei Wang Senior Research Scientist Research & Measurement Sciences Educational Testing Service |
Scenario-based, socioculturally responsive assessments: Student performance and test properties |
|
2/26/25 Remote |
Dr. Jennifer Randall Dunn Family Endowed Professor and Dunn Family Chair of Psychometrics and Test Development Marsal Family School of Education |
Remote: Validity and the Pursuit of Justice |
|
3/5/25 Remote |
Dr. Diego Zapata-Rivera Distinguished Presidential Appointee Educational Testing Service |
Remote: Technology-Enhanced Learning and Assessment |
|
3/12/2 |
Spring Break |
|
|
3/19/25 |
Dr. Beverly Cross Moss Chair of Excellence in Urban Education College of Education The University of Memphis |
Using Culture and Identity to Create Transformative and Relevant Assessments |
|
3/26/25 |
Dr. Tenaha O’Reilly Principal Research Scientist Research & Measurement Sciences Educational Testing Service |
Leveraging AI for good: Examples in Interdisciplinary, Composition and Psychology Courses |
|
4/2/25 |
Dr. Sandra Cooley-Nichols Department Chair Professor of Special Education Department of Instruction & Curriculum Leadership |
Transforming Assessments for Special Needs Populations: Mitigating the Overrepresentation of Students of Color Placed in Special Programs |
|
4/7/25 (11:00 am) Remote |
* Dr. Ernesto Panadero Professor at Dublin City University and Ikerbasque Professor at Deusto University |
Transforming Assessment into a Learning Engine: Feedback and Self-Regulated Learning |
|
4/9/25 |
Dr. Jim Pellegrino Professor Emeritus University of Illinois at Chicago |
Fulfilling A Vision of Assessment in Support of Educational & Societal Good: Progress Made Yet Miles to Go
|
|
4/15/25 (11:00 am) Remote |
* Dr. Jean-François Rouet Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Université de Poitiers |
Large-scale international assessment of adults' reading literacy skills: the OECD PIAAC framework, design, and some lessons from Cycle 2
|
|
4/16/25 |
Dr. Rosie Davis APA Past President, 2020 Professor, Counseling, Educational Psychology & Research College of Education The University of Memphis |
Deep Poverty: Creating Innovative and Authentic Assessment for Counseling Psychologists |
|
4/23/25 (11:00 am) Remote |
* Dr. Øistein Anmarkrud & Dr. Monica Melby-Lervåg Professor, PhD Institutt for spesialpedagogikk Universitetet i Oslo |
Assessment in Low Incidence Languages: Language, Culture, and Controversies |
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Next Semester
TBA
Previous Semesters
Previous semester's Seminar themes:
- Spring 2024 Generative Models: Remaking the World with AI
Andrew Olnery, IIS and Psychology
Schedule - Fall 2023 Embodied Cognition
Shaun Gallagher, Philosophy
Schedule - Spring 2023 Agents: Why should they act?
Bonny Banerjee, IIS and Electrical and Computer Engineering
Schedule - Fall 2022 Educational Assessment and Validity
Leigh Harrell-Williams, Counseling, Educational Psychology & Research
Schedule - Spring 2022 The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
David Gray, Philosophy
Schedule - Fall 2021 Computational Linguistics for the Social Sciences and Humanities
Leah Windsor, IIS and English (Applied Linguistics) and Alistair Windsor, Mathematical Sciences
Schedule - Spring 2021 Emotion and Cognition
Ulrike Griebel, IIS, and Kim Oller, Communication Sciences and Disorders
Schedule - Fall 2020 Reading Literacy, Foundational Skills, Comprehension, Knowledge, Assessment, and EdTech
or
How cognitive science on reading literacy and assessment is transforming research and development (or if it isn’t, how it ought to).
John Sabatini, IIS and Psychology
Schedule - Spring 2020 The Brain Basis of Human Behavior
Gavin Bidelman, IIS and Communication Sciences and Disorders
Schedule - Fall 2019 Language Across Modalities
Leah Windsor, IIS and English (Applied Linguistics)
Schedule - Spring 2019 Models of Human Learning
Philip Pavlik, IIS and Psychology (Cognitive)
Schedule - Fall 2018 Harnessing the Data Revolution:Science in the Age of AI
Andrew Olney, IIS and Psychology (Cognitive)
Schedule - Spring 2018 The Evolution and Development of Neurodiversity
D. Kimbrough Oller, Communication Scieces and Disorder, and Ulrike Griebel