Design Philosophy and Theory

The Public Learning Media Laboratory designs and produces web-based cognitive support toolsets that target critical Middle School math, science and information literacy skills. 

Cognitive supports are technologies that empower learners to robustly learn skills and concepts. Supports provide a scaffold for learning process skills in a high-support environment, and then fade as the learner becomes more able to apply skills on their own.

A toolset is the combination of a process tool (that teaches necessary school skills such as how to search or how to multiply) with tools that lead to deeper understanding about components of the targeted process skill. For instance, our Multiplication tool will teach the Standard, Lattice and Partial Products processes for solving multiplication problems, and be supported by sub-tool, for instance, that teach commutativity. Toolsets are true scaffolds that are intended to become unnecessary as a learner moves beyond the tool itself. The final tool is the learners' robust understanding of the skill.

Accessibility at the Forefront

The toolsets we provide differ from existing educational technologies because they are:

• Free, intuitive, and easy to use. We seek to eliminate accessibility challenges and time constraints. 
• Focused on essential skills/knowledge/concepts. We believe that students proficient and flexible in fundamental skills will be successful at complex learning demands in later grades. 
• Adaptable. Each toolset can be used in a variety of instructional settings (In school and after school, college preparation and training programs, or at home) and individually, in a group, or as a class (projected). 
• Rigorous. Toolsets provide adjusting levels of instruction depending on the learner's proficiency.