ISLS 2026 Agenda

Thursday, June 18 · 17 sessions

8:00 AM

3 options scroll

Practice Paper · ALP 1100

Co-designing Teaching and Learning Experiences

Practice-oriented papers share co-designed teaching experiences across varied contexts, including wordless books for dual-language kindergarteners, community-building in online undergraduate courses, and board game design with Brownie Scouts. Other talks address climate justice instruction, metacognitive learning strategies, and research-practice partnerships in teacher education.

Design-Based Research in a talk

6 talks

Short Paper · ALP 1110

Co-design, creative methods art-based approaches

Six papers explore co-design and creative methods, from tangible classroom models and arts-based climate storytelling to liberatory computational making with Black boys and trust-building in design-based research teams. Threads include reconceptualizing imagination as social practice and using network analysis to improve co-designed online graduate courses.

Design-Based Research in a talk

6 talks

Long Paper · ALP 2600

Ideology, Culture, and Race in Learning

A long-paper session on how ideology, culture, and race shape learning and teaching, with studies on facilitator sensemaking about social-emotional learning in a refugee program and a justice-centered genetics unit on racial health disparities. Other papers analyze whiteness in science professional development and the epistemic work of a right-wing education podcast.

Design-Based Research in a talk

4 talks

10:00 AM

8 options scroll

Short Paper · ALP 1110

Data Literacy and Data Science Education

Papers on data literacy and data science education range from students creating biometric data visualizations to confronting coloniality and Indigenous food sovereignty in data science. Threads include youth conceptions of data, a roleplay-based curriculum embedding epistemological pluralism, and epistemic practices in an online fitness community.

Design-Based Research in a talk

6 talks

Hybrid Symposium · ALP 1600

Learning Sciences in the Global South: Dialogue for multiple ways of knowing and doing

This hybrid symposium argues for multiplicity in ways of knowing and doing, drawing on cases from Latin America, Africa, and South Asia where scholars adapt and expand conventional research. The stories foreground tensions and (in)visible privileges in Global South scholarship, with dialogue continuing during and after the conference.

Design-Based Research

Long Paper · ALP 1700

Epistemic Cognition

Long papers on epistemic cognition examine how learners coordinate knowledge and evaluate sources, including physics students' math-concept integration and high schoolers' epistemic vigilance toward everyday science. Additional talks cover epistemic navigation in a unit on Traditional Chinese Medicine and how laypeople resolve expert disagreement.

Design-Based Research in a talk

4 talks

Symposium · ALP 2300

Co-design as Transformative Pedagogical Spaces: what zooming out teaches us about learning to co-design together

This symposium gathers researchers and practitioners across participatory design, youth participatory action research, and research-practice partnerships to challenge how co-design is treated as brief, isolated activity. By zooming out temporally and analytically, the papers reveal co-design as relational, political, and ethical practice honed over longer timescales.

Design-Based Research

Short Paper · ALP 2700

AI Literacy, AI Tools, Teacher learning

Short papers address AI literacy, AI tools, and teacher learning, tracing teachers' evolving participation in AI education and critical AI literacy developed through design problem solving. Threads include posthuman creativity with GenAI in an Indian design workshop, redistributing cognition in AI-supported writing, and instructor scaffolding of student GenAI use.

Design-Based Research in a talk

6 talks

Symposium · ALP 2nd Floor Rear

Insights from International Partnerships on Infrastructuring for Maker Education

This structured poster symposium uses infrastructuring as a lens to examine the supports needed to integrate maker education into formal schooling. International research groups collaborating with local stakeholders share insights on the tensions between grassroots maker movements and established school systems.

Design-Based Research

Short Paper · ALP 3600

Strategies and frameworks for learning analytics at multiple scales

Short papers present strategies and frameworks for learning analytics at multiple scales, including latent profile analysis of math anxiety in game-based learning and teacher engagement in micro-credential PD. Other talks compare small versus large language models for generating math problems and examine self-regulated learning with GenAI.

Design-Based Research in a talk

6 talks

Short Paper · ALP 3610

Critical Perspectives in Learning Environments

Short papers bring critical perspectives to learning environments, covering AI-supported personality alignment among pre-service teachers, teachers designing AI-ethics scenarios with LLM tools, and whether critical pedagogy survives algorithmic social-media constraints. Other talks explore service-learning tutoring and equity, and game-based learning in literature classrooms.

Design-Based Research in a talk

5 talks

2:30 PM

5 options scroll

Long Paper · ALP 1700

Teacher Transformation

Four papers on how teachers become agents of transformation through partnerships, mentoring, and boundary crossing. Cases include a composite counterstory of teacher change, science educators reconciling personal beliefs with official scripts, cohort-based research-practice partnerships, and high-coupling encounters bridging maritime and education communities.

Design-Based Research in a talk

4 talks

Long Paper · ALP 2300

AI and Ethics

Four papers on teaching and studying AI ethics across age groups and methods. Approaches include a literature review of AI ethics in ISLS proceedings, tabletop and scenario-based games for fostering multidimensional and ethical thinking, and laddering methodology for surfacing young children's values in design.

Design-Based Research in a talk

4 talks

Long Paper · ALP 2600

Epistemic Authority and Agency

Four papers examining how authority and agency are distributed among students, teachers, and AI tools during learning. Threads include authority in elementary science modeling, how students remix AI chatbots into dialogic tools, epistemic agency in student-LLM math problem solving, and analytics-supported reflective assessment for pre-service teachers.

Design-Based Research in a talk

4 talks

Short Paper · ALP 2700

Integrating Computer Science with Science Education

Six short papers on integrating computer science and computational thinking with science, math, and special education. Threads include an umbrella review of CT-math integration, AI as a creative-computing design partner, computing for special-education contexts, quantum computational thinking, and teachers designing physical-computing and robotics units.

Design-Based Research in a talk

6 talks

Short Paper · Barclay

Co-Design, Community-based education, sociocultural learning

Six short papers examine co-design and community-engaged education across undergraduate science, minority-owned small businesses, and intergenerational environmental-justice programs. Threads include enacting solidarity in community partnerships, collaborative data co-analysis, and culturally sustaining pedagogy through game redesign.

Design-Based Research in a talk

6 talks

4:15 PM

1 option

Poster · Outdoors

ICLS Posters - Thursday Poster Session (In-Person)

An in-person poster session covering wide-ranging learning sciences research, including science and engineering teacher reasoning, AI in classrooms, and equity-oriented design in research-practice partnerships. Topics span heritage-language and algebra apps, urban gardens as educational technology, cognitive presence in MOOCs, and community-engaged research experiences.

Design-Based Research in a talk

91 talks