Curriculum Vitae

39 Blake Road
Lexington, Massachusetts 02420
(781) 862 - 2153 (Home)
(781) 879 2633 (Cell)
stevemc@rcn.com

Education: B.A. in Political Science, May 1981
M.S. in Computer Science, May 1983
Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY

Ph.D. in Learning and Assessment, Tufts University, May 1998
Dissertation: Detailed, multi-site assessment of software for
conceptualizing statistics through active experimentation.

Personal: Born 8/20/1958, excellent health
Married to Denise Ann Aronson
Two children, Jackson and Charlotte

Current Position:
2006- Associate Research Professor, Michigan State University

• Developing, along with the Boston Museum of Science, The North
  Carolina Museum of Life and Science, and MATRIX, a set of museum
  and field based exhibits to teach science through athletics
• Co-coordinating the development of a research framework for a
  science of learning center for history and the social sciences.
• Lead evaluator on TAH projects
• Ongoing director of assessment for an East African/US coalition for
  sharing post secondary courses and developing international citizens
• Assessment and program evaluator for the Quilt Index, an on-line
  digital library and research tool for quilts and American history

2005- Simulation Designer and Co-author, simulation based textbook on
American Politics, McGraw Hill

• Designing a set of seven decision-based simulations to aid insight into
  key topics in American Politics. Responsible for UI, pedagogy, and
  meeting market constraints on higher education e-learning.
  Simulations are based on research and learning theory described in
  Virtual Decisions, Cohen, et al, (eds) published fall 2005. Textbook
  and simulations to be published in 2009

2000- Director of Education and Training, Safety Partners, Inc

• Providing leadership and resources to a 20-person consulting service
  company that provides on site health and safety programs to start-up life
  science companies.
• Designing and delivering training on technology and learning theory to
  help staff build effective on site client health and safety training.
  Spearheaded design of a one-day professional development course
  on chemistry for non-chemists. Complementary course design
  underway for biology.
• Internal consultant on using technology to foster communication and
  access materials for ten safety professionals working at over forty
  client sites. Provided training on accessing and using proprietary
  company software

Prior Positions:
2000-2006 Learning Design and Research Consultant for Michigan State
University/MATRIX

• Directing research and developing learning designs and assessments
  for an NSF project on digital libraries in higher education.
  Collaborators include the BBC, Northwestern University, and Glasgow
  Caledonian University. Focus is on access to multimedia material
  through digital libraries, web-based approaches to writing research
  papers and new ways for students to cite e-sources.
• Designed and delivered training for in-service and pre-service
  teachers, and university faculty on using technology and digital
  libraries for web-based writing.
• Developing pedagogy and assessing UI/learning outcomes for
  federally funded e-learning programs on:
  • Teaching American History
  • Original Source Curricula for Understanding Apartheid
  • Digital Libraries for the Humanities (i.e., Quilt Index, National
    Gallery of the Spoken Word, Oyez project on the Supreme Court)
• Principal on one of only 20 teams invited to submit a $25,000,000
  Science of Learning Center proposal to the NSF in 2007.
• Co-authored and contributed sections on learning design, learning
  theory and assessment for six successful NSF/NEH/IMLS grants

1985-2005: Tufts University
Senior Learning Technologist:

• Initiated and evaluated university wide programs on learning with
  technology. Reviewed e-learning and course management systems.
  Developed programs on cross-cultural education with African
  universities. Worked with the medical, dental and veterinary schools
  on projects in public health, veterinary radiology, and medical
  digital libraries.

Key e-learning projects:

• Created a pedagogical framework and helped design technology
  for collaborative courses between East African and US
  universities. Trained faculty and staff in Kenya and the US.
  Designed and delivered workshops on using collaborative
  technologies for helping students acquire cultural perspectives
  on public health knowledge. Responsible for formative evaluation,
  measuring learning outcomes and developing learning processes
  to meet pedagogical objectives.
• Designed, with content experts, a multimedia simulation of judicial
  sentencing to teach students about variation in sentencing
  decisions. Won best multimedia software from the American
  Political Science Association. Presented at the US Congress.
  Assessed usability,developed an appropriate learning theory, and
  measured learning outcomes
• Developed, with content experts, a set of programs to complement
  a first course in probability and statistics. Published by Prentice
  Hall. Assessed UI and learning outcomes

Technical Director, Curricular Software Studio

• Directed a multi-institutional assessment of software for teaching
  statistics. Directed learning technology projects for departments
  across the university. Wrote grants and helped secure funding for
  projects. Concurrently pursued a PhD. Taught courses in the Tufts
  psychology department on Introductory Psychology and Statistics for
  the Behavioral Sciences

Lead Programmer, Curricular Software Studio

• Directed programming staff on projects for teaching statistics,
  veterinary anesthesiology, veterinary radiology and computer science.
  Develop new projects and pursed funding. Worked with publishers to
  bring projects to market.

Programmer:

• Worked with content experts to develop simulations for teaching
  population genetics and veterinary anesthesiology. Supervised
  student programmers. Trained teachers and students on using
  instructional technology.

Selected Publications

Books and Instructional Technology

Cohen, S., Portney, K. et al (2005) (eds.) Virtual Decisions: Digital
Simulations for Teaching Reasoning in the Social Sciences and
Humanities. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers.

Cohen, S., and Lewis, S., (1997). A Guided Workbook for Experimenting
with ConStatS. Prentice Hall: NJ.

Portney, K., Cohen, S, Goldman, J. (2000): Crime and Punishment: A
Simulation of Criminal Justice Sentencing: Companion to a
Wadsworth text on Criminal Justice.

Smith, G. E, Cohen, S., et al., (1997). ConStatS: Software for
Conceptualizing Statistics. Package includes software and manual:
Prentice Hall: NJ.

Chew, F., Cohen, S. (1993). GeneWright: A Population Genetics
Simulation, New York: Exeter Software/Applied Biomathmatics.

Papers and Book Chapters

Cohen, S., Eales, S., Reghberger, D. Fegan, M. (2007). The Role of
Digital Libraries in Helping Students Attend to Source Information. In
Brophy, P., Craven, J., and Markland, M., (eds) Libraries Without
Walls 6: Evaluating the Distributed Delivery of Library Services
London: Facet Publishing, 2006

Portney, K., Cohen, S., Goldman, J., and Soraci, S., (1999). From Analog
to Digital: Teaching About Criminal Sentencing with Technology. In
Brown, D. G. (ed). Computer Enhanced Learning: Vignettes of Best
Practice from America's Most Wired Campuses. Wake Forest
University Press - Scientific Division.

Cohen, S., and Chechile, R. (1997). Probability distributions, Assessment
and Instructional Software: Lessons learned from and Evaluation of
Curricular Software. In (Garfield, J and Gal, I, eds), The Assessment
Challenge in Statistics Education. IOS Press, 1997

Kruger, L., Cohen, S., Marca, D., and Matthews, L. (1996). Using
the INTERNET to extend training in team problem solving. Behavior
Research Methods Instruments, and Computers. 28(2), 248-252.

Cohen, S., Smith, G. E., Chechile, R. A., Burns, G., and Tsai, F. (1996).
Impediments to learning probability and statistics identified from an
evaluation of instructional software. Journal of Educational and
Behavioral Statistics, 21(1), 35-54.

Cohen, S., Tsai, F., & Chechile, R. (1995). A model for assessing student
interaction with educational software, Behavior Research Methods,
Instruments, and Computers. 27(2), 251-256.

Selected Refereed and Invited Presentations

The Role of Digital Libraries in Helping Students Attend to Source
Information, Libraries Without Walls, Lesvos, Greece

Digital Libraries in the Classroom: Helping Students Attend to Source
Information, Coalition for Networked Information, Phoenix, December, 2005

Designing Curricula for Cross-Cultural Collaborative Learning, Workshop
on Curricular Co-Development. University of Nairobi, January, 2003

Learning Theory for Teaching Complex Reasoning about Variability in
Judicial Sentencing. US Congress, September, 2000

Grants Programs for Funding Instructional Technology. Northeast
Consortium of Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts,
Bradford College, February 2000

Instructional Technology Assessment. Vice Provosts Meeting, Tufts
University, March, 1999

Using Simulation to Teach Social Reasoning. Society for Computers
in Psychology, November, 1998

Learning Through Experimentation. Boston Chapter of the American
Statistical Association, April, 1997

Summary Results of the ConStatS Evaluation. International Association
for Statistics Education, Granada Spain, July, 1996

Using the INTERNET to Teach and Assess Problem Solving. Society for
Computers in Psychology, November, 1995

A Model for Assessing Student Interaction with Educational Software.
Society for Computers in Psychology, November, 1994

Computer-Based Lessons for Addressing Misconceptions in Introductory
Statistics. American Education Research Association
Conference, New Orleans, LA, April, 1994

A Method for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Educational Software.
Society for Computers in Psychology, November, 1993

Designing Curricular Software for Conceptualizing Statistics. International
Association for Statistics Education, Perugia, Italy, August, 1993

Awards

Best Student Paper, Society for Computers n Psychology (SCiP), 1995

Appointments as a Referee

Reviewed grants for the US Department of Education (FIPSE, Preparing
Tomorrow's Teachers to Teach with Technology) and the National
Science Foundation

Reviewer for the Journal of Research in Mathematics Education and the
Journal of Mathematical Psychology.

Synergistic Activities

K-12 educational support and presentations in Massachusetts, support for
African Higher Education through presentations and consultations,
manuscript reviews for colleagues, learning technology reviews

Key Collaborators

ProfessorsJim Else (CDC), David Donald (GCU) Lisa Fine (MSU), Jerry
Goldman (NWU), Jeffrey Griffiths (Tufts), Mark Kornbluh (MSU), Mbaabu
Mathiu (UNairobi), Kent Portney (Tufts), Dean Rehberger (MSU), Vernon
BurtonUniversity of Illinois)