ISLS 2026 Agenda

Wednesday, June 17 · 21 sessions

8:00 AM

9 options scroll

Arts Gallery & Performance

#1184: Looking Through the Lens: How Youth Practice Perspective-Shifting Through Filmmaking

A screening of four youth-produced short films from Spy Hop's Voices of the West media intensive in Utah, paired with research on how young filmmakers practice perspective-shifting. The selected works span a documentary, a YouTube-tutorial parody, an anxiety-themed narrative, and a nostalgic piece on community spaces.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning

Short Paper · ALP 1100

Maker educations

These maker-education papers examine identity, literacy, and collaboration across making contexts, including crafting and engineering identities, collaborative lore-building between marginalized girls, and computational literacies in an agricultural class. Additional talks probe what multimodal AI sees versus facilitator expertise, reflection quality and self-efficacy, and sustainable 3D clay printing.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

6 talks

Symposium · ALP 1300

Bridging Gaps: Participatory Design as a Tool for Social Justice in Education

This symposium shows how participatory design can disrupt one-size-fits-all approaches to foster equitable, contextually relevant practices that advance social justice. Studies position immigrant teens as co-designers for civic participation, examine equitable stakeholder partnerships, co-design curricula in resource-constrained settings, and design inclusive schools for LGBTQIA+ students.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning

Long Paper · ALP 1700

Culturally Responsive Design

These papers show how culturally responsive and sustaining design supports learning and identity, from leveraging students' cultural resources in university physics to a robotic Punjabi Dhol for embodied music learning. Further talks examine Diné digital storytelling and relational, culturally sustaining computing with Tibetan diaspora girls.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

4 talks

Symposium · ALP 2300

Locating Vibes as the Felt Dimensions in Learning

This symposium theorizes 'vibes' as the felt, relational, and often unspoken dimensions of learning ecologies, arguing they are consequential for equitable learning with students from non-dominant communities. Drawing on out-of-school interactions, the papers offer a working theory of vibes, show how the colloquial term shaped intuitive pedagogy, and argue for treating vibes as a legitimate construct in the learning sciences.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning

Short Paper · ALP 2500

Socio-Emotional & Group Dynamics

Five short papers examine the emotional and social side of collaboration, from team functioning and leadership in pediatric medical simulations to regulating epistemic emotions in higher- versus lower-performing CSCL groups. Other talks cover teacher learning on WhatsApp, a fifth-grade SEL digital curriculum, and boundary-crossing STEM competencies in global informal programs.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

5 talks

Short Paper · ALP 2700

Teachers learning and agency

These papers explore teacher learning, agency, and positioning, including reinterpreting project-based learning in Kazakhstan and how inclusive 'we' discourse shapes belonging in science. Further talks treat customization dilemmas, teacher positioning during student game redesign, resistance as a professional resource, and autonomy in informal learning.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

6 talks

Long Paper · ALP 3610

Supporting Learner Autonomy

Spanning methods and contexts, these papers examine how to support learner autonomy and student-centered learning, including non-linear modeling of SCL challenges and a meta-analysis of school-based ADHD interventions. Additional talks study math environments where students feel safe to be wrong, primary-source projects via network analysis, and neurodiversity-affirming responses to uncertainty.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

5 talks

Arts Gallery & Performance · Screening Room / Theatre (1070 McCormick Screening Room)

#1332: Listening for Learning in Students’ Art from a Children’s Hospital School

An arts gallery presentation by an interdisciplinary artist-educator on listening for learning in children's art created within a children's hospital school. The work explores inclusive, adaptive arts education for pediatric patients and how fleeting experiences can be translated into tangible visual forms.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning

10:00 AM

7 options scroll

Arts Gallery & Performance

#1184: Looking Through the Lens: How Youth Practice Perspective-Shifting Through Filmmaking

Four short films from Spy Hop's "Voices of the West" media-production intensive in Utah showcase how youth filmmakers make multimodal artistic decisions while shifting perspective. The selection spans a documentary on a local restaurant, a parody YouTube tutorial subverting the superhero genre, a film on anxiety from social media, and a nostalgic piece on a community movie theater.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning

Practice Paper · ALP 1100

Collaborative Design Structures in Researcher and Practitioner Partnerships

Six practice papers describe how researchers and practitioners co-design educational programs, including a university laboratory school for equitable computing and a community partnership developing urban-agriculture curriculum. Cases also span co-designed embodied games for computational thinking, technology-education pathways, and designing edTech with schools rather than for them.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

6 talks

Short Paper · ALP 1110

Place and land-based learning and education across various modalities

Six short papers explore place- and land-based learning across modalities, including spatial typologies for active-learning classrooms and syncretic game designs interweaving virtual and natural worlds. Others address youth climate storytelling, multispecies discomfort in a STEAM program, identity play through creek science, and scientific practice in an archaeological apprenticeship.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

6 talks

Long Paper · ALP 2600

Out-of-school Experiential Learning

Four long papers investigate experiential learning beyond the classroom, including learner pathway analysis for STEM persistence across in- and out-of-school settings and nature-based learning motivation for students with learning differences. Additional work studies prior-knowledge use in outdoor learning and self-regulated learner profiles in flipped project-based courses.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

4 talks

Short Paper · ALP 2700

Design based research and instructional design to support learning

Six short papers report design-based research and instructional design work, including comic cons for scientific literacy and redesigning a graduate program toward learning design. Additional talks cover game-based planning for disability transition services, teacher agency in co-design, hybrid conference history, and boundary tools bridging home and classroom.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

6 talks

Long Paper · ALP 3610

Research Practice Partnerships and Design

Four long papers examine research-practice partnerships and design, including the value of scaling science teaching slowly and a Reverse Translation framework that repositions practice as a source of knowledge. Other talks study computing education in refugee support organizations and navigating boundaries when integrating CS in elementary schools.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

4 talks

Arts Gallery & Performance · Screening Room / Theatre (1070 McCormick Screening Room)

#1332: Listening for Learning in Students’ Art from a Children’s Hospital School

An exhibition of student art from a children's hospital school, accompanying research on integrating arts education into pediatric settings through inclusive, adaptive approaches. The artist's own practice spans drawing, photography, sculpture, and digital fabrication, often dissolving printed images to evoke memory and emerging meaning.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning

11:30 AM

1 option

Intergenerational Diaglogue Groups

Facilitated dialogue groups connecting scholars across career stages around shared methodological and topical interests. Conversations span design-based and participatory design research, critical perspectives on AI and learning, teacher learning, and informal and out-of-school learning.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

4 talks

11:45 AM

1 option

Social / Networking · ALP 1600

Ignite Talks I

A fast-paced set of Ignite talks featuring auto-advancing slides on emerging ideas and works-in-progress across the learning sciences. Threads include AI in classrooms and teams, joy and wellbeing pedagogies, neurodivergent and inclusive learning, computational thinking, and arts-based methods such as dance and game design.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

12 talks

4:15 PM

3 options scroll

Poster · Online

ICLS Virtual Posters - Virtual Poster Session

A virtual poster session covering a wide range of learning-sciences topics, including making and aesthetics, computational thinking and creative coding, and culturally responsive STEAM across international contexts. Studies also examine generative-AI policies and student-LLM reasoning, field trips, and physics teacher professional development.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

70 talks

Poster · Outdoors

CSCL Posters - Wednesday Poster Session (In-Person)

In-person CSCL poster session dominated by generative AI in collaborative learning, from teacher-in-the-loop essay scoring and AI lesson-planning to constrained GenAI for deeper learning and agency. Other posters cover multimodal and NLP methods for assessing collaboration, conversational agents in shared reading, and AI tools in arts learning.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

39 talks

Poster · Outdoors

ICLS Posters - Wednesday Poster Session (In-Person)

An in-person poster session spanning equity-oriented learning across STEM, computing, and the arts, with threads on multilingual and culturally responsive teaching, integrated STEM+C and AI literacy, and teacher learning in makerspaces and curricular customization. Settings range from family garden activities and afterschool math to climate-change pedagogy and preservice teacher preparation.

Informal, Community & Out-of-School Learning in a talk

93 talks