Constance Steinkuehler

Constance Steinkuehler
Steinkuehler at the 2017 Game Developers Conference
Born Constance Anne Steinkuehler
Alma mater University of Missouri, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Known for Game-based learning
Spouse(s) Kurt Squire
Scientific career
Fields Education
Game-based learning
Literacy
Informatics
Institutions University of California, Irvine
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Office of Science and Technology Policy
Doctoral advisor James Paul Gee

Constance Steinkuehler (Squire) is an American professor of Informatics at the University of California–Irvine. Before coming to Irvine, she taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. From 2011 to 2012 she took public service leave and worked as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House Executive Office, advising on policy matters about video games and learning.[1]

Steinkuehler at the 2015 Game Developers Conference's 1ReasonToBe panel

She currently researches the cognitive and social aspects of multiplayer online videogames and esports. Her current projects include mixed methods research on the NASEF high school esports league, quantitative study of esports in higher education, and advice on parenting gamers. She chairs the annual Esports Conference at UCI and the UCI Esports Program Task Force for Diversity and Inclusion.


Education

Steinkuehler graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, with three bachelor's degrees (mathematics, English, and religious studies) in 1993. She earned a master of science degree in educational psychology with a focus on cognitive science in 2000 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2005 she received her Ph.D. in literacy studies, also from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her doctoral thesis was on "Cognition & Learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games". Her advisor was linguistics and literacy scholar James Paul Gee.[2]

Research

After earning her doctorate, she joined the faculty at University of Wisconsin as an associate professor of digital media and taught classes on "videogames, research methods, and the 'smart' side of pop culture" (or "pop cosmopolitism") in Curriculum and Instruction Department.[3]

Steinkuehler is a founding fellow of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) and chairs the annual Games, Learning & Society Conference held each summer in Madison, Wisconsin.[4] In 2009, she served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Games. She was also in a pilot TV show called Brain Trust.[5] The show was piloted in 2008 and featured a team of thought leaders working collaboratively to solve seemingly unsolvable problems.

Steinkuehler ran a research lab with doctoral and undergraduate students, which investigated forms of cognition and cultural practices as they relate to gameplay and learning. The group focused largely on online game communities and fandoms. They took a sociocultural approach to their research, using mixed methods, including ethnographic work and experimental research.[6] From 2007 to 2009, Steinkuehler ran a casual learning lab for at-risk adolescent boys, largely from rural areas. They were considered to be disengaging from or failing school, particularly in subjects related to literacy. Her lab experiments focused on comparing gaming and school contexts in order to figure out how to leverage the boys' interest in games toward productive literacy practices.[7]

In 2010 Steinkuehler received a $350,000 research grant from the MacArthur Foundation for "Adolescent Online Games and Reading". The grant enabled her to investigate the nature, function, and quality of texts that are a regular part of online gaming, how reading performance of adolescents on such game-related texts compares to performance on school-related texts, as well as the factors that contribute to such differences (e.g., prior knowledge, strategy, persistence, choice), and how game-related reading activities are situated within (or against) children's everyday literacy networks across contexts, including both school and home. She has also received funding from the Spencer Foundation and worked with James Paul Gee on an additional project funded by the MacArthur Foundation, called "A Productive Approach To Learning & Media Literacy Through Videogames & Simulations".[2]

Public service

From 2011 to 2012 she took public service leave and worked as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House Executive Office. Specifically, she helped coordinate cross-agency efforts to leverage games toward national priority areas including childhood obesity, early literacy, and STEM education, and helped forge new partnerships to support an ecosystem of innovation. Furthermore, she played a key role in meetings through the Vice President’s office on the controversial debate over videogames and violence.

Personal life

Steinkuehler is married to Kurt Squire, former Creative Director at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery,[8] and also a Professor at University of California–Irvine.[9]

Select publications

Steinkuehler is an author or editor on four different books and has contributed chapters to eight other book titles. Additionally, she has published more than 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals in areas ranging from cognition to education to technology.[2]

Some selected works can be found below:

  • Steinkuehler, C. & Duncan, S. (2007). Scientific habits of mind in virtual worlds. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), San Francisco, February 15-19.
  • Steinkuehler, C. & Williams, D. (2006). "Where everybody knows your (screen) name: Online games as 'third places'". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(4).
  • Steinkuehler, C. A. (2004). Learning in massively multiplayer online games. In Y. B. Kafai, W. A. Sandoval, N. Enyedy, A. S. Nixon, & F. Herrera (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the Learning Sciences (pp.521–528). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

References

  1. ↑ "Constance Steinkuehler". Website.education.wisc.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-22.
  2. 1 2 3 Constance Steinkuehler. "CV" (PDF). Retrieved 2013-10-22.
  3. ↑ "UW-Madison - Department of Curriculum and Instruction". Education.wisc.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-22.
  4. ↑ Games, Learning, and Society Conference Archived June 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ "BRAIN TRUST on Vimeo". Vimeo.com. 2008-10-02. Retrieved 2013-10-22.
  6. ↑ "Constance Steinkuehler » The PopCosmo Research Team". Website.education.wisc.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-22.
  7. ↑ Steinkuehler, C. & King, B. (2009). Digital literacies for the disengaged: Creating after school contexts to support boys' game-based literacy skills. On the Horizon, 17(1), 47-59.
  8. ↑ "Discovery Home - Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery". Discovery.wisc.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-22.
  9. ↑ "UW-Madison - Department of Curriculum and Instruction". Education.wisc.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-22.

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