Michelle Ellefson
Position/Status
- Lecturer in Psychology and Neuroscience in Education
E-mail Address
mre33@cam.ac.uk
Phone
(+44) 01223 767684
Qualifications
- PhD in Brain and Cognitive Sciences (Southern Illinois University)
- MA in Brain and Cognitive Sciences (Southern Illinois University)
- BA in Psychology, summa cum laude (University of Minnesota)
Membership of Professional Bodies/Associations
- Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
- Association for Psychological Science (APS)
- Cognitive Science Society
- The Psychonomic Society
- Cognitive Development Society (CDS)
Profile
Michelle Ellefson has scientific interests in cognition, neuroscience, child development, and education, integrating them into a multi-disciplinary research programme aimed at improving math and science education. Using an iterative process, she pairs laboratory based research with classroom learning and curriculum development in order to better understand mechanisms responsible for cognitive development and to leverage that understanding to improve educational practice. Her current research projects focus on the role of executive functions in school achievement and how children's reasoning about causes and effects impacts how they think about scientific phenomena. In addition, she is applying specific cognitive principles to classroom learning, including simplicity and desirable difficulties. Initially trained in developmental cognitive neuroscience, her interests in improving cognitive outcomes for all children have inspired her to reach beyond this foundational training to develop her integrative, multi-disciplinary approach that informs both school practice and theoretical accounts of cognitive development.
Before arriving at Cambridge in 2009, Michelle was an assistant professor in psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she originally convened the INSTRUCT (Implementing New Student and Teaching Resources Using Cognitive Theory) research group. Together with chemists, biologists, and physicists at VCU and Cambridge, she is working to develop the WISER program (Widening Inter-disciplinary Science Education Research). Across these academic fields, individuals learn only the language in their field of choice, becoming fluent monolingual speakers confined to the language of their disciplines with its constraints on their thinking and innovation. Instead, WISER aims to train individuals to be fluent multilinguals, having the capacity to transcend the thinking across these domains. WISER provides post-graduate training opportunities that uniquely combine STEM content (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), cognitive science/neuroscience, and educational theory/pedagogy aimed at transforming science education in ways not achievable by advancements within those individual fields alone.
Academic Area/Links
- Psychology & Neuroscience in Education
Research Topics
- Applications of cognitive science/neuroscience to improved educational practice
- Executive functions
- Task switching
- Causal reasoning
- Scientific reasoning
- Science education
Prospective PhD Applications
Michelle would welcome informal contact from prospective PhD students on any of the research topics mentioned above.
Current Research Projects
- Task switching and executive functions in maths and reading achievement
- Causal reasoning in chemistry and biology
- Learning complex structures
- Disfluency and educational practice
- Applications of the simplicity principle in classroom learning
- Evaluating causal efficacy: children and adults, novices and experts
- Design-based learning for science education
Course Involvement
- Postgraduate
- PhD supervisor
- MPhil/MEd (Psychology and Education): Quantitative data analysis, cognition and cognitive development, project supervision
- Undergraduate
- Lectures on cognitive development, social development, and quantitative data analysis
- RandI project supervision
Principal Publications
Journal Articles
Ellefson, M.R., Treiman, R., and Kessler, B. (2009). Learning to label letters by sounds or names: A comparison of England and the United States. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102, 323-341.
Apedoe, X.A., Reynolds, B., Ellefson, M.R., and Schunn, C.D. (2008). Bringing engineering design into high school science classrooms: The heating/cooling unit. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 17, 454-465.
Ellefson, M.R., Brinker, R.A., Vernacchio, V.J., and Schunn, C.D. (2008). Design-based learning for biology: Genetic engineering experience improves understanding of gene expression. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 36, 292-298.
Young, M.E., Wasserman, E.A., and Ellefson, M.R. (2007). A theory of variability discrimination: Finding differences. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 14, 805-822. Ellefson, M.R., Shapiro, L.R., and Chater, N. (2006). Asymmetrical switch costs in children. Cognitive Development, 21, 108-130.
Christiansen, M.H., Conway, C.M., and Ellefson, M.R. (2003). Raising the bar for connectionist modeling of developmental disorders. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 752-753.
Young, M.E., and Ellefson, M.R. (2003). The joint contributions of shape and color to variability discrimination. Learning and Motivation, 34, 52-67.
Young, M.E., Ellefson, M.R., and Wasserman, E.A. (2003). Toward a theory of variability discrimination: Finding differences. Behavioural Processes, 62, 145-155.
Molfese, D.L., and Ellefson, M.R. (1999). The use of event-related potentials to study cognitive disorders. Journal of Molecular and Chemical Neuropathology, 13, 263-264.
Books and Book Chapters
Conway, C.M., Ellefson, M.R., Dale, R. and Christiansen, M.H. (in press). Connectionist models of developmental disorders: A critical appraisal. In D.L Molfese and V.J. Molfese (Eds.), Handbook of developmental neuropsychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Christiansen, M.H., Dale, R.A.C., Ellefson, M.R., and Conway, C.M. (2002). The role of sequential learning in language evolution: Computation and experimental studies. In A. Cangelosi and D. Parisi (Eds.), Computational approaches to the evolution of language. Springer Verlag: New York.
Christiansen, M.H., and Ellefson, M.R. (2002). Linguistic adaptation without linguistic constraints: The role of sequential learning in language evolution. In A. Wray (Ed.), The transition to language: Studies in the evolution of language (pp. 335-358). Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. [Chapter selected by peer review].
Molfese, D.L., Narter, D.B., Van Matre, A.J., Ellefson, M.R., and Modglin, A.A. (2001). Language development during infancy and early childhood: Electrophysiological correlates. In J. Weissenborn and B. Hoehle (Eds.), Approaches to Bootstrapping: Phonological, lexical, syntactic and neurophysiological aspects of early language development, Volume 2 (pp. 181-229). John Benjamins: Amsterdam-Philadelphia.
Ellefson, M.R. (1996). Someone I love has cancer: An interactive workbook for children whose loved ones have cancer. American Cancer Society, Minnesota Division, Minneapolis, MN.
Curriculum Development
Abrasheff, R., Ellefson, M.R., and Schunn, C. D. (2007). Designer bacteria: A design-based learning unit for high school biology, Version 2. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. (By convention, the authors are listed alphabetically).
Apedoe, X, Ellefson, M.R., and Reynolds, B., and Schunn, C. D. (2007). Heating/cooling systems: A design-based learning unit for high school chemistry, Version 2. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. (By convention, the authors are listed alphabetically).
Abrasheff, R., Ellefson, M.R., and Schunn, C. D. (2006). Designer bacteria: A design-based learning unit for high school biology, Version 1. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. (By convention, the authors are listed alphabetically).
Apedoe, X, Ellefson, M.R., and Reynolds, B., and Schunn, C. D. (2006). Heating/cooling systems: A design-based learning unit for high school chemistry, Version 1. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. (By convention, the authors are listed alphabetically).
Papers Published in Conference Proceedings
Ellefson, M.R., Johnstone, E.L., Blagrove, E.L., and Chater, N. (2006, July). Can developmental changes in switch costs be explained by age alone? Poster presented at the 28th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Published in R. Sun (Ed.), The Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (p. 2476). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Johnstone, E.L., Ellefson, M.R., and Chater, N. (2005, July). Young children's attribution of causality under uncertainty. Poster presented at the 27th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Turin, Italy. Published in B. G. Bara, L. W. Barsalou, and M. Bucciarelli (Eds.), The Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1060-1065). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Conway, C.M., Ellefson, M.R., and Christiansen, M.H. (2003, August). When less is less and when less is more: Starting small with staged input. Paper presented at the 25th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Boston, MA, USA. Published in R. Alterman and D. Kirsh (Eds.), The Proceedings of the 25th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp.670-675). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ellefson, M.R. (2001, August). What was the cause? Children's ability to categorize inferences. Poster presented at the 23rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Edinburgh, Scotland. Published in J.D. Moore and K. Stenning (Eds.), The Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (p. 1212). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ellefson, M.R. and Christiansen, M.H. (2000, August). Subjacency constraints without universal grammar: Evidence from artificial language learning and connectionist modeling. Poster presented at the 22nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Published in L.R. Gleitman and A. K. Joshi (Eds.), The Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 645-650). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ellefson, M.R. and Christiansen, M.H. (2000, April). The evolution of subjacency without universal grammar: Evidence from artificial language learning. Paper presented at the Evolution of Language: 3rd International Conference, Paris, France. Published in J.L. Dessalles and L. Ghadakpour (Eds.), The Evolution of Language: 3rd International Conference (pp. 98-101). Paris, France: Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications.
Ellefson, M.R. (1996, May). Neural correlates of infant memory development: A comparison study of NICU graduates and full-term healthy infants. Paper presented at the 64th annual meeting of the Minnesota Academy of Science, St. Paul, MN, USA. Published in the Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science, 60, 27.