GSE Profiles

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Michael Ranney Associate Professor Cognition and Development Office: 4655 Tolman Hall Phone: 510-642-1551 Email: ranney at berkeley.edu Websites: • morenumerate.org/publications.html • convinceme.com

Staff Contact: Kate Capps
Office: 4533 Tolman Hall
Phone: 510-642-4207
Email: kate at berkeley.edu

degrees | interests

M

ichael Ranney's research involves the nature of explanation and understanding, in both formal and informal domains. In work on explanatory coherence, he and his students and collaborators study and model the nature and utility of human reasoning that is based upon both supportive and contradictory relations. They also generate curricula, methods, and artificially intelligent software designed to improve rational thinking. Ranney's work on the representation and reorganization of scientific and societal knowledge illustrates the fragmentary nature of most lay people's knowledge--in arenas as diverse as physics, biology, abortion, and immigration. His newest project studies reasoning and policy-making that involve socially important rates and statistics. He has been a Spencer Fellow of the National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation, and was a University of California Regents' Junior Faculty Fellow. Ranney heads the Reasoning Research Group at Berkeley. Some of his publications include:

"Designing and assessing numeracy training for journalists: Toward improving quantitative reasoning among media consumers," in Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Learning Sciences (with L. Rinne et al., 2008);

"The Perceived Consequences of Evolution: College Students Perceive Negative Personal and Social Impact in Evolutionary Theory," in Science Education (with S. Brem et al., 2003);

"Education," in The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (with T. Shimoda, 1999); and

"Toward an Integration of the Social and Scientific: Observing, Modeling, and Promoting the Explanatory Coherence of Reasoning" (with P. Schank), in Connectionist and PDP Models of Social Reasoning (1998).

For a sample of some recent publications, click on "morenumerate.org/publications.html" above (or go to convinceme.com and click on the "publications" link toward the top of that page).

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Degrees

Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh: Experimental Cognitive Psychology

M.S., University of Pittsburgh: Experimental Cognitive Psychology

B.A., University of Colorado, Boulder: Psychology and Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology (double major)

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Other Affiliations

Affiliated Professor in the Psychology Department of the University of California, Berkeley.

Member of the Executive Committee of the interdisciplinary Cognitive Science Faculty of the University of California, Berkeley.

Member of the Executive Committee of the SESAME (Graduate Group in Science and Mathematics Education) Faculty of the University of California, Berkeley.

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Areas of Specialization / Interests

Adult Development
Cognitive Development
Human-Computer Interface
Learner-centered Education
Learning
Mathematics Education
Policy Analysis and Evaluation
Research Methods
Science Education
Technology and Schools

degrees | interests

Last Modified: 12/18/08