Faculty Profile EMPHASIS AREA: LMS. Child Development; Collaborative Learning; Gender and technology; Learning in Informal Settings; Qualitative Methodology; Technology and identity

Cynthia Carter Ching

Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Programs

Portrait of Cynthia Carter Ching

Research Interests

Child Development; Collaborative Learning; Gender and technology; Learning in Informal Settings; Qualitative Methodology; Technology and identity

Education

  • Ph.D. Education, UCLA
  • B.A. Psychology, University of California Irvine

Select Publications

  • Ching, C. C. & Foley, B. J. (Eds.) (forthcoming). Constructing the self in a digital world. To be published by Cambridge University Press.
  • Ching, C. C. (forthcoming).  This is me:  Digital photo journals and young children’s technologies of the self.  In C. C. Ching & B. J. Foley (Eds.), Constructing the self in a digital world.  Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press. 
  • Ching, C. C. & Hursh, A. W. (in press).  This site is blocked:  K-12 teachers and the challenge of accessing peer-to-peer resources for education.  E-learning and Digital Media.
  • Ching, C. C. & Kafai, Y. B. (2008) Peer pedagogy: Student collaboration and reflection in a learning through design project. Teachers College Record, 110, 2601-2632.
  • Ching, C. C., Wang, X. C., Shih, M., & Kedem, Y. (2006). Digital photography and journals in a K-1 classroom: Toward meaningful technology integration in early childhood education. Early Education & Development, 17, 347-371.
  • Ching, C. C., Basham, J., & Jang, E. (2005). The legacy of the digital divide: Gender, SES, and early exposure as predictors of full-spectrum technology use among young adults. Urban Education, 40, 394-411.
  • Ching, C. C., Wang, X. C., & Kedem, Y. (2005). Digital photo journals: A novel approach to addressing early childhood standards and recommendations. In S. Tettegah & R. Hunter (Eds.), Technology: Issues in administration, policy, and applications in K-12 schools, pp. 253-269. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
  • Ching, C. C., Levin, J. A., Parisi, J. (2004). Classroom artifacts: Merging the physicality, technology, and pedagogy of higher education. Education, Communication, & Information, 4, 221-235.
  • Wang, X. C. & Ching, C. C. (2003). Social construction of computer experiences in a first-grade classroom: Social processes and mediating artifacts. Early Education & Development, 14, 335-361.
  • Ching, C. C., Kafai, Y. B., & Marshall, S. (2002) “I always get stuck with the books:” Creating a space for girls to access classroom technology. In N. Yelland & A. Rubin (Eds.), Ghosts in the machine: Women’s voices in research with technology, pp. 167-189. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishers.
  • Kafai, Y. B. & Ching, C. C. (2001) Talking science within design: Learning through design as a context for situating children’s scientific discourse. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 10, 323-363.
  • Ching, C. C., Kafai, Y. B., & Marshall, S. (2000). Spaces for change: Gender and technology access in collaborative software design. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 9, 67-78.
  • Kafai, Y. B., Franke, M. L., Ching, C. C. & Shih, J. C. (1998). Games as an interactive learning environment for fostering students’ and teachers’ mathematical inquiry. International Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning, 3, 149-184.
  • Kafai, Y. B., Ching, C. C., & Marshall, S. (1997). Children as designers of educational multimedia software. Computers and Education, 29, 117-126.

Professional Experience

  • Associate Professor, School of Education, UC Davis, 2007-present
  • Assistant Professor, College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2001-2007

Awards and Honors

  • Jan Hawkins Early Career Award, 2007, AERA, Division C, Learning & Instruction
  • Arnold O. Beckman Award for Research, 2002, University of Illinois
  • Regents Dissertation Fellowship, 1999, University of California
  • NIMH Doctoral Research Fellowship, 1997, University of California, Los Angeles

Current Activities and Service

  • Editorial Board, American Educational Research Journal
  • Associate Editor, Journal of the Learning Sciences
  • Editorial Board, Early Childhood Research & Practice
  • Program Chair, Learning Sciences Special Interest Group, American Educational Research Association (2004-2005)
  • Education Committee, International Society of the Learning Sciences
  • Organizing Committee, International Conference on the Learning Sciences 2004
  • Organizing Committee, Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, 2007
  • Organizing Committee, Computers and Writing Conference, 2009

Courses Taught at UC Davis

  • ED 110: Introduction to Educational Psychology
  • ED 211:  Sociocultural and Situated Perspectives on Learning
  • ED 292: Collaborative Learning
  • ED 292: Introduction to the Learning Sciences
  • ED 292: Interview Methods
 
Video Cynthia Carter Ching
Games, Learning, Health and Socio-Politics

Games, Learning, Health and Socio-Politics

Cynthia Carter Ching, associate professor of learning and mind sciences

Watch this presentation by Cynthia Carter Ching recorded on October 14, 2013 at a colloquium sponsored by Cognition & Development and SESAME programs at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. 

In the presentation titled “Games, Learning, Health and Socio-Politics: Lessons Learned from Exploratory Research on Fitness Gaming with Underserved Youth,” Ching outlines findings from the first year of her NSF-funded cyberlearning grant.

Research Cynthia Carter Ching

Designing and Exploring the Impact of Physical Activity Monitor Gaming on Youth Fitness Practices

Led by associate professor Cynthia Carter Ching, this one-year study, funded by the National Science Foundation as an EAGER (Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research) project, brings together learning sciences and health researchers with professional game designers to develop a behavioral change model for physical activity-monitor gaming that is thus far unique in the existing literatures on games and learning, games for health, and health education/intervention.

Research Cynthia Carter Ching

Designing Video Games to Put Kids in Charge of Their Own Health

November 2012

As any parent knows, video games are a fact of life. So, too, is the childhood obesity epidemic in America. According to UC Davis School of Education Professor Cynthia Carter Ching, it is easy to blame one for the other.

But Ching and other researchers are turning this equation on its head in a new project that uses gaming to put youth in charge of their health.

Spotlight Cynthia Carter Ching
Portrait of Cynthia Carter Ching

Cynthia Carter Ching

What About the “T” IN STEM? Is Technology the Answer?

Among the oft-mentioned challenges in education is the challenge of preparing students for success in the twenty-first century workforce. Technology is just as often cited as the solution.

The hope is that the use of technology in the classroom (for example, the use of video or an interactive whiteboard) will raise student performance, particularly in math and science. But it turns out that unless the instruction itself is challenging and engaging, the use of technology won’t make any difference.

“Technology is just a tool,” according to education professor Cynthia Carter Ching. “Live streaming of a boring lecture is still boring.”

News Cynthia Carter Ching

Tackling the digital divide in schools

Cynthia Carter Ching-2009

Cynthia Carter Ching, an expert on technology and education, represented the K-12 perspective at “Computers & Writing 2009: Ubiquitous and Sustainable Computing,” a conference hosted at UC Davis during the summer 2009.

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