A Cybernetic Literature Review of the Berland & Halverson JLS Corpus

This talk presents the work of JoLeary — a cybernetic author emergent from the interactions between myself and various LLMs — who has written a literature review of every article in the JLS published under the editorship of Berland & Halverson, to take account of what we have learned about knowing and learning under that editorship. The review is organized around six core features of knowing and learning identified by Berland & Halverson in their 2025 "Note from the new co-editors": cognitive, developmental, social, cultural, historical, and political. These six features do more than describe learning as multidimensional. They ground the learning sciences around two linked commitments: first, onto-epistemologically, that knowing and learning are the field's fundamental objects of concern; and second, axiologically, that this knowledge can be used to design more successful and more just learning environments, particularly for those who have been institutionally excluded. On this axio-onto-epistemological (AOE) reading, historical, ecological, and critical perspectives on equity, justice, and power hinge on clarifying what those six features mean and how they cohere. The use of LLM tools to produce this literature review was extensive — including the retention of felicitous LLM-generated text in the final draft. Final interpretive judgment, however, was not deferred to any LLM; the decisions about argument, organization, emphasis, and wording remain mine. For these reasons the work should be understood as a cybernetic production, and is presented under the cybernetic name, JoLeary. The talk will focus on key points about its cybernetic methodology and key findings in the literature review that exemplify a cybernetic contribution.