Shufeng Ma

Academic Title：Associate Professor

Email：sfma@dep.ecnu.edu.cn

PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Educational Psychology (2017)

MA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Educational Psychology (2013)

BS, Beijing Normal University, Chemistry (2010)

Career Theory and Practice 、Educational Psychologysign

My first line of research centers on children’s development of language and higher-order thinking in the classroom, specifically as children participate in collaborative group work, with the goal of developing effective educational interventions to improve the classroom learning experiences of underserved children. Specifically, I am interested in the effect of collaborative group work on children’s oral narrative skills, productive use of academic vocabulary, conceptual understanding, causal reasoning, and social emotional learning. My second line of research focuses on how to facilitate the adoption of interactive instructional approaches by organizing teachers into teaching-focused communities of practice.  

collaborative learning, child development, classroom intervention, small group discussion, higher-order thinking and reasoning, academic vocabulary, community of practice.

Grants:

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Funded Project. The Effects of Interactive Instructional Methods on Children’s Higher-Order Thinking. (2018) 

East China Normal University Flower of Happiness Funding Project (Humanities and Social Sciences). The Assessment and Nurturing of Core Competencies in Complex Learning Environment. (2019)

Recent Publication:

Ma, S., Herman, G. L., West, M., Tomkin, J. H., & Mestre, J. P. (2019). Studying STEM faculty communities of practice through social network analysis. The Journal of Higher Education, 90(5), 773-799. Doi: 10.1080/00221546.2018.1557100. 

Ma, S., Herman, G. L., Tomkin, J. H., Mestre, J. P., & West, M. (2018). Spreading Teaching Innovations in Social Networks: the Bridging Role of Mentors. Journal for STEM Education Research, 1(1-2), 60-84. Doi: 10.1007/s41979-018-0002-6. 

Lin, T.-J., Ma, S., Anderson, R. C., Jadallah, M., Sun, J., Morris, J. A., Miller, B. W., & Sallade, R. (2018). Promoting academic talk through Collaborative Reasoning. In R. Gillies (Ed.), Promoting Academic Talk in Schools. New York, NY: Routledge. 

Ma, S., Anderson, R. C., Lin, T.-J., Zhang, J., Morris, J. A., Nguyen-Jahiel, K., … Yi, S. (2017). Instructional influences on English language learners’ storytelling. Learning and Instruction, 49, 64-80. 

Ma, S., Zhang, J., Anderson, R. C., Morris, J., Nguyen-Jahiel, K. T., Miller, B., ... & Hsu, Y. L. (2017). Children's productive use of academic vocabulary. Discourse Processes, 54(1), 40-61. 

Ma, S., Herman, G. L., West, M., Tomkin, J., Mestre, J. (2016). Studying faculty communities of practice through social network analysis. In Proceedings of the 46th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference. Erie, Pennsylvania. 

Ma, S., Sun, J., Morris, A. J. & Anderson, R. C. (2016). Collaborative reasoning: An instructional approach that promotes higher-order thinking. In W. Li & H. Shu (Eds.), International research on children’s reading. Beijing, China: Beijing Normal University Press. [In Chinese] 

Latawiec, B. M., Anderson, R. C., Ma, S., & Nguyen-Jahiel, K. (2016). Influence of Collaborative Reasoning discussions on metadiscourse in children’s essays. Text & Talk, 36(1), 23-46. 

Morris, J., Miller, M., Anderson, R. C., Nguyen-Jahiel, K., Lin, T.-J., Scott, T., Zhang, J., Sun, J., & Ma, S. (2018). Instructional discourse and argumentative writing. International Journal of Educational Research.90, 234-247. 

Zhang, X., Anderson, R. C., Morris, J., Miller, B., Nguyen-Jahiel, K., Lin, T-J, Zhang, J., Jadallah, M., Scott, T., Sun, J., Latawiec, B., Ma, S., Grabow, K., & Hsu, Y-L. (2016). Improving children’s competence as decision makers contrasting effects of collaborative interaction and direct instruction. American Educational Research Journal, 53(1), 194-223.

Ad hoc reviewers for Learning and Instruction, Educational Psychology, Journal of Experimental Education, Journal for STEM Education Research, and International Journal for STEM Education.