Keynote Speakers

Can we design for healing in the Learning Sciences?

Monday, June 10th, 9:00am

Abstract: Learning is, as the conference theme names, a cornerstone for healing. What do we mean by healing and if this is something we desire, can we design for it? My answer is a tentative yes. “Tentative” because we must be careful not to use healing as a buzzword or treat it like a panacea. As responsible learning scientists, we need to recognize and study the histories and diverse roots of healing traditions and consider how they might carefully ground our designs.

In this talk, I share my journey to understanding the need for individual and institutional healing. My approach to healing is guided by what I call principles of CARE – Communal action, engagement with the creative Arts, Reimagining methodology and evidence, and Embodying care in our research and pedagogy. Using these principles, I will use examples from my and others’ work to draw attention to how designs for healing can support social change alongside the development of new forms of learning and unlearning.

Bio: Dr. A. Susan Jurow is Professor of Learning Sciences & Human Development at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of Journal of the Learning Sciences (2021-2024). Dr. Jurow’s scholarship centers on ameliorating systems that marginalize communities. Her work involves research and design with historically non-dominant youth in school and community settings, progressive social activists, and technology designers. Across these contexts, Dr. Jurow and her collaborators foreground people’s capacity to organize new futures while struggling against systems of oppression. Dr. Jurow is also co-founder of the Healing, Empowerment, And Love (HEAL) program aimed at addressing academic harm for women of color graduate students through racial healing and holding space to deepen participants’ connection to their inner wisdom.

Techno-Pedagogical Design to Prepare Future-Ready Collaborative Learners in Authentic Classroom Settings

Tuesday, June 11th, 9am

Abstract: Fostering collaborative learning among school students is more crucial than ever in today’s interconnected yet conflict ridden world. As we prepare the students to tackle the complex challenges, it is imperative to design and sustain meaningful computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments within authentic classrooms. Drawing her extensive experiences in design-based research involving over 600 students cross 7 Singapore schools, Wenli CHEN will share her insights on working with school teachers to integrate CSCL theories, pedagogical know-how and educational technologies to design and implement computer-supported collaborative argumentation to foster problem solving, critical, adaptive and inventive thinking, conflict resolution and empathy among learners. Wenli’s research focuses on strengthening the nexus between CSCL research and its practical implementation in authentic classrooms. In this talk, she will discuss the technological and pedagogical scaffolds, particularly the Spiral Model of Collaborative Knowledge Improvement, that facilitate both small group and larger class collaborative learning within a limited curriculum time frame. In addition to the applied translation of learning sciences and CSCL theories to classroom practices, Wenli has tested her learning designs in lab settings using a multi-modal learning analytics approach to better understand how and when CSCL works. The talk covers these learning analytics-informed design principles that contribute to effective collaborative learning experiences.

Bio: Wenli CHEN is an Associate Professor and Head of the Learning Sciences and Assessment Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore. Her specialization lies in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and learning analytics. Her research has been recognized with the “Distinguished Researcher Award” from the Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education and the Nanyang Education Award from NTU. Presently, Wenli serves as the Editor-in-Chief for both the Journal of Computers in Education, and Learning: Research and Practice. She also serves as an Associate Editor for Instructional Science, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, and Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning. Moreover, she is an editorial board member for the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. She is the executive committee member of the Asia Pacific Society of Computers in Education and the Global Chinese Society of Computers in Education. She also served as co-chair of the CSCL Community Committee of the International Society of the Learning Sciences from 2016 to 2021. She was the Program Committee Co-chair for the International Conference of CSCL in 2022, and the Co-chair for International Conference of the Learning Sciences 2016. She chaired the Program Committee for the International Conference on Computers in Education 2017, and the Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education 2014.

Opportunity Landscaping: A Framework for Community-led Transformation of Hyperlocal Learning Ecosystems

Wednesday, June 12th, 3:30pm

Abstract: This keynote introduces “Opportunity Landscaping,” a framework aimed at redefining the utilization of local educational landscapes to foster equitable learning opportunities across a community’s geography. The keynote will examine how two research-community practice partnerships have leveraged this framework to develop opportunity landscapes- a comprehensive aggregation of learning and leisure resources localized within specific geographical boundaries- to understand the historical impact of policies such as redlining and school desegregation on equitable access to their community’s hyperlocal learning opportunities. Finally, the keynote will challenge the field to collaboratively develop the socio-technical systems necessary to engage in cross-community collaborations to develop shared practices for increasing equitable access to joyful learning opportunities in historically under-resourced geographies.

Bio: Nichole Pinkard, Alice Hamilton Professor of Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, is the founder of Digital Youth Network and L3, a social learning platform that connects youth’s learning opportunities across the school, home, community, and beyond. Through collaborations with city agencies Pinkard and DYN’s work has ignited new models for reimagining, visualizing, and documenting learning across spaces through the creation of existence proofs in urban contexts.

Pinkard received a 2010 Common Sense Media Award for Outstanding Commitment to Creativity and Youth, the Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies, an NSF Early CAREER Fellowship. She earned her bachelor’s in computer science from Stanford University, a master’s in computer science from Northwestern, and her doctorate in learning sciences from Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy. Her current scholarly interests include the design and use of pedagogical-based social networks and socio-technical systems to support community-level ecological models of learning.

When “Why” comes before “What”

Wednesday, June 12th, 9am

Abstract: We all want to change the world or at least impact it somehow. Some of us do so through institutions of education, activism, arts, etc. We decide what we want to be and paint a vision in our minds that fuses together what we want to accomplish and how it can leave a lasting impression on society. Imagine if we put our “why” first. This poetic lecture will place an emphasis on the importance of know why we do what we do and the benefits of putting our “why” first.

Bio: Jillian Hanesworth is an Emmy Award winning spoken word artist, the Poet Laureate Emeritus of Buffalo, New York and a community organizer and activist. Jillian was born and raised on the east side of Buffalo where she developed a vision to use art and advocacy to help her community reimagine justice and work together to create a system where all people can thrive.

Currently, Jillian travels the country performing poetry and speaking on various topics including; art for activism, the impacts of storytelling and the importance of honest and critical social and political conversations. In addition, Jillian oversees “Buffalo Books”, a nationally recognized program which aims to improve access to culturally relevant books for residents of the east side of Buffalo with the hopes of helping to increase literacy rates among Black and brown communities.

Land-based learning: Grounding experiences in place and community

Wednesday, June 12th, 9am

Abstract: For the past two years at the University at Buffalo, Indigenous and non-Indigenous students alike have found land-based learning to be a highly engaging, informative, and rewarding educational experience. Through hands-on experiential learning activities during field trips to the Letchworth Teaching Woods on campus, local sites of significant history, and nearby Indigenous territories (reservations), students learn directly from Indigenous community members about Haudenosaunee environmental philosophy and knowledge, while strengthening their relationships with the natural world and each other. These courses are the latest offerings from an educator whose 18 year pedagogical practice has merged land-based learning with digital storytelling and civic engagement on environmental, social, and ecological justice issues.

Bio: Dr. Jason Corwin is a citizen of the Seneca Nation, Deer Clan and a lifelong media maker. He was the founding director of the Seneca Media & Communications Center and has produced several short and feature length documentaries. Dr. Corwin has extensive experience as a community-based environmental educator utilizing digital media to engage with Indigenous ways of knowing, sustainability, and social/environmental justice topics. His research is situated at the confluence of Indigenous ways of knowing, environmental education, and digital media. It highlights Native peoples’ and communities’ work to achieve narrative sovereignty, sustainability, and environmental justice.