ISLS 2026 Agenda

Thursday, June 18 · 29 sessions

8:00 AM

7 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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development 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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

6 talks

Short Paper · ALP 1120

Teacher professional development in practice

Papers report on teacher professional development in practice, examining tolerance for ambiguity in model-based science, dialogic teaching change through video-based PD, and teachers' evolving views of scientific uncertainty as a resource. Other talks cover computational thinking PD, video-based math identity research, and pre-service teachers' TPACK trajectories.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

6 talks

Long Paper · ALP 1700

Argumentation, Discourse, and Agency

Papers examine argumentation, discourse, and agency across settings, from learner feedback agency and laypeople's evaluation of online health information to thinking routines in EFL film discussions. Additional talks address facilitation dilemmas in teacher video clubs and learner engagement in LLM-supported complex-systems simulations.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

5 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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

4 talks

Short Paper · ALP 3600

Humanities, Civics, and Learning

A short-paper session on humanities, civics, and learning, examining ethical sensemaking, informal learning, and political contestation across global contexts. Topics include mobile-phone learning among Jamaican farmers, children's more-than-human ethical reasoning, young activists comparing the Holocaust to current wars, and school change in India.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

4 talks

Arts Gallery & Performance · ALP 3700

#1316: “We Know Something You Don’t Know”: A Live Actual-Play Performance

A live, improvisational "actual play" performance of the tabletop roleplaying game "We Know Something You Don't Know," designed to support educator learning. Players create "complex yet capable" troublemaker characters to examine power hierarchies in schooling and cultivate critical civic empathy.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development

10:00 AM

10 options scroll

Short Paper · ALP 1100

Scaffolding and design of scaffolds

Papers examine scaffolding and scaffold design, from teachers co-navigating student uncertainty in science to instructional scaffolding of interlocking models in phenomenon-driven units. Other talks cover curriculum-mediated teacher noticing in geometry simulations, personalized Parsons code puzzles, and AI designed to scaffold generative cognitive engagement.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

5 talks

Short Paper · ALP 1120

Argumentation, dialogue, and dialogic engagement

Papers examine argumentation and dialogic engagement, from supporting competent outsiders' source evaluation with the AIR framework to a dual preparation model for dialogic teaching in East Asian classrooms. Other talks offer a typology of social bids in math groupwork and interaction analysis of knowledge construction in multilingual Indian science classrooms.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

4 talks

Long Paper · ALP 2100

Collaboration with AI

Papers investigate human-AI collaboration in learning, comparing peer versus AI assistance in graph theory and examining cognitive, social, and metacognitive dimensions of student-student-LLM problem solving. Other talks design multi-agent AI systems and use deliberately biased chatbots to prepare teachers for collaboration.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

4 talks

Short Paper · ALP 2200

Collaborative STEM Inquiry

Short papers on collaborative STEM inquiry span engineering notebooks scaffolding middle school robotics, multi-user immersive VR for science learning, and collaboration quality in computational modeling. Threads also include teacher knowledge building via KNILT minicourses and ordered-network-analysis-supported reflective assessment.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

5 talks

Short Paper · ALP 2500

Perceptions of Innovation and Change

Papers examine perceptions of innovation and change, with several analyzing teacher and STEM-educator sentiments about generative AI through social media discourse on X and Reddit. Other talks cover participatory design for AI in teacher education, reconceptualizing conversational AI as a learning medium, and NGSS implementation.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

5 talks

Long Paper · ALP 2600

Dialogic Conversation and Pre-Service Teachers

Long papers focus on pre-service teachers and dialogic conversation, including science teachers rehearsing questioning with AI-based and VR classroom simulators. Other talks examine an AI-feedback co-design intervention for math tutors' productive talk and learning-analytics-supported reflective assessment for knowledge building.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

4 talks

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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

6 talks

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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development 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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

5 talks

Arts Gallery & Performance · ALP Patio

#1392: Acting School and the Art of Unlearning

A performance and reflection from actor, teaching artist, and scholar Kailea Saplan on the connections between theatre, education, and the learning sciences. Drawing on a background spanning a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction and MFA acting training, it considers how the arts can foster curiosity, compassion, and diversity in how we educate.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development

2:30 PM

9 options scroll

Short Paper · ALP 1110

AI tools, interactions, and design

Six short papers on designing AI tools and understanding human-AI interaction in learning. Topics include AI's effect on the writing process, hybrid-intelligence and human-in-the-loop systems, four years of AI formative assessment and fairness, conversation-based assessment with AI agents, and new interfaces for AI-supported writing.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

6 talks

Symposium · ALP 1300

Scaling Communities of Learners: How Size, Power, and Partnerships Shape Political Learning

A symposium using sociocultural and critical theories of power to examine how community scale shapes political learning for equity and justice. Across four cases ranging from organizational change in graduate education to a youth design-build group, teacher-leaders organizing for integration, and a single teacher-mentor dyad, it traces how transformation is mediated across community sizes.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development

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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development 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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

4 talks

Long Paper · ALP 2500

Motivation, Interest, Identity, and Achievement

Four quantitative papers linking motivation, identity, belonging, and achievement, several at large scale. Topics span equity-oriented pedagogy predicting college success, the attenuation of math identity across the high-school-to-STEM transition, motivation mediating belonging and STEM persistence, and affective-cognitive links in primary students' scientific literacy.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development 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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development 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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

6 talks

Long Paper · ALP 3610

Computer Science Education

Four papers on how programming environments and AI are reshaping computer science education. Topics include balancing usability and expressiveness in block-based modeling, Parsons puzzles paired with self-explanation, teachers' shifting conceptions of AI/ML and algorithmic justice, and norms around when copying code is acceptable.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

4 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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

6 talks

4:15 PM

3 options scroll

Demo & Interactive · ALP 1700

Demo & Interactive Session

A hands-on demo session showcasing AI-powered learning tools, including GenAI writing platforms, AI tutors for STEM and self-explanation, and teachable agents. Other demos cover collaboration analytics dashboards, agent-based modeling, VR reflection agents, and mobile creative-coding for community contexts.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

23 talks

Poster · Outdoors

CSCL Posters - Thursday Poster Session (In-Person)

An in-person poster session spanning collaborative learning research, with strong threads on AI literacy games, epistemic agency, and knowledge building alongside SEL, VR and maker collaboration, and equity-focused design. Studies range from a Turing-test game and weaving-based ML curricula to ceremonial Indigenous designs and belonging infrastructure in research-practice partnerships.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

19 talks

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.

Teacher Learning & Professional Development in a talk

91 talks