ISLS 2026 Agenda

Thursday, June 18 · 10 sessions

8:00 AM

4 options scroll

Symposium · ALP 1300

Renewing Socio-cultural theory in a Networked, Decentralized Supercapitalist Society

Three papers and discussion ask what socio-cultural theory offers for understanding learning amid extremism, online fragmentation, and supercapitalist cultural structures. Cases draw on community partners including Homeboy Industries, academic esports federations, and Indigenous education partners to examine how macro cultural trends shape learning today.

Sociocultural & Activity-Theory Frameworks

Hybrid Symposium · ALP 1600

Evaluating and assessing learning in AI-embedded environments: perspectives across learning scientists

A hybrid poster symposium of eight studies framing evaluation of AI-supported learning as a relational, ethical practice rather than a matter of technical accuracy. Across classrooms, tutoring, and teacher coaching, researchers use discourse analytics, video analysis, and practical measures to examine AI's effects on collaboration, belonging, and cognition through human-centered, equity-oriented design.

AI in Education

Symposium · ALP 2300

Investigating, Understanding, and Generating Concreteness in STEM Education

A symposium examining the role of concreteness and abstraction in STEM learning, offering a critical perspective on concrete representations and a data-driven taxonomy for describing them. Contributions also present automatic generation of concrete representations and connect mathematics-education discourse to other STEM disciplines.

STEM Education

Symposium · ALP 2nd Floor Rear

Broadening the Boundaries of the Learning Sciences: Reclaiming the Territory of Latin American Contributions to Educational Research

This symposium reimagines the Learning Sciences through Latin American epistemologies, weaving studies of Mapuche weaving mathematics, Uruguayan rural futures, and WhatsApp organizing at the Mexico-US border. Empirical work across Colombia, Ecuador, and beyond puts constructionism, ethnomathematics, and decolonial speculation in dialogue with field theories.

Indigenous, Decolonial & Global South Perspectives

10:00 AM

3 options scroll

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.

Indigenous, Decolonial & Global South Perspectives

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.

Co-Design & Participatory Design

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.

Maker Education & Constructionism

2:30 PM

3 options scroll

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.

Equity, Justice & Inclusion

Hybrid Symposium · ALP 1600

Fostering Educational Intimacy: ILSSA Intergenerational Partnerships for Purposeful Community Building

A reflective session from the ILSSA student association exploring what community means and how to support it equitably, using duoethnography and Uttamchandani's concept of educational intimacy. The discussion considers intergenerational partnerships, embracing the political in learning, and building relational continuity across ILSSA's leadership and the communities it represents.

Equity, Justice & Inclusion

Symposium · ALP 3600

Rise Above State-of-the-Art: Designing New Possibilities of GenAI for Knowledge Building

This symposium presents seven contributions on how Generative AI can enrich human-AI collaboration for Knowledge Building, moving beyond 'learning from AI' toward collaborative creation and learner epistemic agency. Designs span dialogic and integrated approaches across contexts from doctoral interdisciplinary research to K-12 classrooms.

Generative AI & Large Language Models