Fostering Social Presence and Sense of Belonging in University Students Webinar

Online Event

The goals related to building an online community outside the classroom is to create a positive, holistic learning experience that contributes to improved engagement, sense of belonging, and retention. A well-curated online community provides scaffolds for building social presence. It also encourages interaction between groups of students who are usually perceived as separate groups (e.g., campus-based and online), thus enabling a sense of cohesion and mutual support. Studies suggest increased social presence and sense of belonging contribute to higher levels of engagement and retention among college students.

Facilitating Productive Disciplinary Engagement in an Online Class Webinar

Online Event

This pilot study focuses on an introductory course on Human-Computer Interaction for Educational Technology. This course is intended for graduate students who are interested in learning about design issues and key considerations while designing or evaluating educational technology. As such, the topics in this course cover the basics of interaction and usability issues and also go beyond by introducing students to various pedagogical and learning theories that influence the design of educational technology.

Virtual Learning Dens: A Third Space for Playful Reflection Webinar

Online Event

In partnership with the Mendon-Upton Regional School District, the MIT Playful Journey Lab is developing Learning Dens—virtual spaces that provide a weekly activity series to promote playful interactions and reflection among learners. These spaces create a safe, social, virtual opportunity to help educators connect with and support their students and for students to connect with and support one another. Learning Den activities emphasize creative and collaborative forms of reflection and empower each student to recognize the different circumstances that their peers have faced over these past months of the pandemic, fostering a sense of connection and community.

Public Engagement through Public Prose Webinar

Online Event

Featuring: Lung Hsiang Wong (National Institute of Education, Singapore); Shirin Vossoughi (Northwestern University, USA); Mark Guzdial (University of Michigan, USA) This hour-long session will explore…

ISLS Annual Meeting 2021

Ruhr-Universität Bochum Universitätsstraße 150, Bochum, Germany
Online Event

Conference Theme: Reflecting the Past and Embracing the Future. The 2021 Annual Meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS) is the first of its kind, the first of a new series of annual events that will bring together the international community of the Learning Sciences as a whole. This is a milestone in the evolution of our community and a good reason to reflect on and celebrate our achievements in the past, and to embrace and envision a bright future.

Taking Stock of Science Standards Implementation: A Summit

Online Event

The Board of Science Education of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is hosting a public summit October 14-15, 2021 to take stock of the implementation of state science standards and determine the next steps to consider for continuing or reinvigorating implementation efforts. The summit will explore a number of different levers for implementation–such as policies, assessment, curriculum/instructional materials, and professional development–and how equity and the student experience can be positioned at the center of the work. The summit will serve as a setting to consider implementation across all states and territories, identify successes and challenges, and identify areas where additional resources or work is needed.

Learning Symposium: Ethical and Political Dimensions of Our Work

Online Event

Network of the Learning Sciences in Canada is organized mainly by researchers affiliated with Canadian universities but our network is not bounded by national borders. In this session, we will discuss two recent articles in the Journal of the Learning Sciences (Curnow & Jurow, 2021 and Philip & Sengupta, 2021) in the form of panel discussion and small group discussion.

ISLS Annual Meeting 2022

International Conference Center Hiroshima 1-5, Nakajima-cho, Hiroshima, Naka-ku, Japan

International Collaboration toward Educational Innovation for All: Overarching Research, Development, and Practices.

The ISLS Annual Meeting started as a new forum for the society members to exchange their ideas and insights through two conference programs, the Learning Sciences (ICLS) and Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). In 2022, we will explore international collaboration to empower educational innovation for all in this challenging time by discussing meaningful connections among research, development, and practices.

Designing to Disrupt: Creating space for the work that matters to you

Events of 2020 (e.g, the global Black Lives Matter protests and COVID-19 pandemic) saw the greater STEM community learning more about identity, oppression, and how they are reflected in both their disciplines and greater society. However, for many scholars, this was not new, as they had commonly harmful academic and professional experiences. In this talk, Dr. Nicki Washington discusses her path in computing, how that has shaped her work in identity-inclusive computing education, and why ”doing the work” is something for every scholar in every discipline.

Past, Present, Future, Past: A Journey Toward Endarkened Storywork

In this talk, Toliver discusses the challenges and opportunities of engaging in Endarkened Storywork, including the affordances and pitfalls of being a critical scholar of color working toward equity and justice in the context of Afrofuturism and education. By blending personal narrative, popular culture, and educational research, Toliver uses this talk to (1) consider what it takes to think about and do research centered on the creation of more just futures and to (2) detail the advantages of utilizing the speculative as an essential component in educational research and teaching.

Unmanageable Subjects: Trans Childhoods and the Struggle for Self-Determination at School

In the midst of “Don’t Say Gay” legislation banning early elementary school teachers from discussing gender and sexuality with their students, the United States is embroiled in controversy over the meaning of gender in civic life and education. In this presentation, I argue that trans people are positioned as unmanageable subjects within the context of K-12 schools in the United States. How might educators embrace unmanageability? What might it look like to practice civic education that resists rigidly scripting the world, including who children are allowed to be and become within it?

ISLS Annual Meeting 2023

Montreal, QC , Canada

This year’s Annual Meeting once again brings together the Learning Sciences community as a whole by combining its two conference programs, the Learning Sciences (ICLS) and Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). These two programs are unified by the theme of “Building Knowledge and Sustaining our Community”. Responding to our three year series of remote, virtual conferences, we aim to revisit the retreat experience of in-person programs. We recognize the value of in-person presentations, learning, networking, mentoring, seeking to revisit (or rediscover) this mode to remember what it is that we had lost.