Mark Schlager

Former Associate Director of Learning Communities

Dr. Schlager was a Senior Research Scientist in CTL from 1995-2008. In 2008, he transitioned to Microsoft Research as a Senior User Researcher. See Mark's Linked In profile for more information on his current work.

At SRI, Dr. Schlager specialized in the application of cognitive and social learning theory to the development of educational technology. His work focused on strategies for cultivating and supporting K-12 education professionals online. As Director of the NSF sponsored Tapped In® project, he developed and studied community-based strategies, services, and technologies that enable teachers and professional development providers to engage in a wide range learning activities online.

Dr. Schlager's work aimed at understanding the nature of local K-12 education communities of practice, specifically their reciprocal relationship with teacher professional development and instructional improvement interventions as a guide to designing sociotechnical infrastructure that supports the continuum of teachers' professional growth. One aspect of this work focused on enhancing teachers' ability to create a highly effective and productive classroom learning environment through an electronic performance support system called OPerETTA. His work has been cited in the National Research Council book, How People Learn (2000), the Web-Based Education Commission (2000) report, The Power of the Internet for Learning: Moving from Promise to Practice, the Open University Press Professional Learning Series book, Teacher Learning for Educational Change (2002), and several books on teacher education and professional development. He has also served as a consultant for educational technology vendors, philanthropic organizations, teacher education programs, and local education agencies.

Education

Ph.D., Cognitive Psychology, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1991
M.A., Experimental Psychology, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1984
B.A., Psychology, Temple University, 1980

Professional Experience

Senior Scientist, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA (1995-2008)
Research Scientist, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA (1990-1995)
Research Scientist, Human Resources Research Organization, Alexandria, VA (1987-1990)
Research Assistant, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO (1985-1986)
Research Intern, IBM Human Factors Laboratory, San Jose, CA (1984-1985)
Teaching Assistant, Psychology Department, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO (1980-1984)

Research Areas at CTL

Learning Environments (Leader)
Teacher Learning (Leader)

Current Projects at CTL

Past Projects at CTL

Building Social and Technical Infrastructure for Teacher Mentoring, Coaching, and Peer Support (Leader) ended 2003
Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT) ended 2003
CLTNet: Centers for Learning and Teaching Network (Leader) ended 2008

Publications

Schlager, M., Farooq, U., Fusco, J., Schank, P., & Dwyer, N. (2009). Analyzing online social networking in professional learning communities: Cyber networks require cyber-research tools. Journal of Technology Education, 60(1), 86-100.
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Crawford, V. M., Schlager, M., Penuel, W. R., & Toyama, Y. (2008). Supporting the art of teaching in a data-rich, high performance learning environment. In E. B. Mandinach & M. Honey (Eds.), Linking data and learning (pp. 109-129). New York: Teachers College Press.
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Farooq, U., Schank, P., Harris, A., Fusco, J. & Schlager, M. (2008). Sustaining a community computing infrastructure for online teacher professional development: A case study of designing Tapped In. Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (JCSCW).
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Crawford, V. M., Schlager, M., Toyama, Y., Riel, M., & Vahey, P. (2005). Characterizing adaptive expertise in science teaching: Report on a laboratory study of teacher reasoning. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association, April 11–15, 2005, Montreal, Canada.
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Schlager, M. S. & Fusco, J. (2004). Teacher professional development, technology, and communities of practice: Are we putting the cart before the horse? In S. Barab, R. Kling, and J. Gray (Eds.), Designing Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning. Cambridge University Press.
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Schank, P., Harris, A., & Schlager, M.S. (2002). Painting a Landscape onto TAPPED IN 2. Presented to the "The Role of Place in Shaping Virtual Community" workshop at the Computer Supported Cooperative Work Conference, New Orleans, LA, November 16-20, 2002.
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Schlager, M. S., Fusco, J., & Schank, P. (2002). Evolution of an on-line education community of practice. In K. A. Renninger and W. Shumar (Eds.), Building virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace. NY: Cambridge University Press, 129-158.
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Derry, S. J., Gance, S. Gance. L. L., & Schlager, M. S. (2000). Toward assessment of knowledge building practices in technology-mediated work group interactions. In S. Lajoie (Ed.) Computer as Cognitive Tools II. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
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Fusco, J., Gehlbach, H., & Schlager, M. S., (2000). Assessing the impact of a large-scale online teacher professional development community. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference for the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, (pp. 2178-2183).
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Schank, P., Fenton, J., Schlager, M. S., & Fusco, J. (1999). From MOO to MEOW: Domesticating technology for online communities. In C. Hoadley (Ed.), Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL) 1999, pp. 518-526. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
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Schlager, M. S., Fusco, J., & Schank, P. (1998, December). Cornerstones for an online community of education professionals. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Special Issue: Wired Classrooms: The Internet in K-12. (Editors: Foster and Ginsberg).
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Schlager, M. S., Fusco, J., Schank, P., Hewson, P., Derry, S., Gance, L. L., & Nagel, L., (1998, April). Plywood walls and exposed pipes: Supporting a culture of learning in an on-line teacher professional development community. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association Conference, San Diego, CA.
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Schlager, M. S., & Schank, P. (1997). TAPPED IN: A new on-line community concept for the next generation of Internet technology. In R. Hall, N. Miyake & N. Enyedy (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning, pp. 231-240. Hillsdale, NJ; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc..
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Schank, P., & Schlager, M. S. (1996). Facilitating collaborative problem solving with Distant Mentor. CSCW '96 Videos, Demonstrations, and Short Papers, pp. 7-8. NY: Association for Computing Machinery.
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Schlager, M. S., Poirier, C., & Means, B. M. (1996). Mentors in the classroom: Bringing the world outside in. In H. McLellan (Ed.), Situated learning perspectives, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.
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Gurer, D. W., desJardins, M., & Schlager, M.S. (1995). Representing a student’s learning states and transitions. In AAAI95 Spring Symposium Technical Report on Representing Mental States and Mechanisms. AAAI Press, March.
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McDaniel, M. A. & Schlager, M. S. (1990). Discovery learning and transfer of problem solving skills. Cognition and Instruction, 7(2), pp. 129-159, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
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