“I am a Technology Creator”: Black Girls as Technosocial Change Agents in a Culturally-Responsive Robotics CampBlack girls and women have long been creators in computing spaces. However, much computing education positions Black girls as workers who execute tasks for others' purposes. Our work takes a different approach by positioning Black girls as technosocial change agents who challenge dominant narratives and construct more liberating identities and social relations as they create new technologies. We draw on data from seven Black girls, ages 9-12, who participated in a 20-hour culturally responsive computing (CRC) camp focused on robotics. Using a thematic analysis approach, we explore how these Black girls demonstrate and enhance their technosocial change agency (TSCA) throughout the camp. We identify themes related to how creating technology helps Black girls refine and fulfill their definitions of technical creators and develop agency through technology creation. We discuss computing education and technology design recommendations within the TSCA framework to support learners' emerging TSCA in future CRC programs.2025CLChun Li et al.University of Pittsburgh, Department of Informatics and Networked SystemFull-Body Interaction & Embodied InputHuman-Robot Collaboration (HRC)Developing Countries & HCI for Development (HCI4D)CHI
ClassID: Enabling Student Behavior Attribution from Ambient Classroom Sensing SystemsPatidar 等人开发ClassID环境课堂感知系统，通过多模态传感器和机器学习实现学生行为自动归因，帮助教师实时了解课堂动态与学生参与度。2024PPPrasoon Patidar et al.Intelligent Tutoring Systems & Learning AnalyticsCollaborative Learning & Peer TeachingUser Research Methods (Interviews, Surveys, Observation)UbiComp
Investigating Demographics and Motivation in Engineering Education Using Radio and Phone-Based Educational TechnologiesDespite the best intentions to support equity with educational technologies, they often lead to a “rich get richer” effect, in which communities of more advantaged learners gain greater benefit from these solutions. Effective design of these technologies necessitates a deeper understanding of learners in understudied contexts and their motivations to pursue an education. Consequently, we studied a 15-week remote course launched in 2021 with 17,896 learners that provided engineering education through a radio and phone-based system aimed for use in rural settings within Northern Uganda. We address shifts in learners’ motivations for course participation and investigate the impact of demographic features and motivations of students on persistence and performance. We found significant increases in student motivation to learn more about and pursue STEM. Importantly, the course was most successful for learners in demographics who typically experience fewer educational opportunities, showing promise for such technologies to close opportunity gaps.2024CKChristine Kwon et al.Carnegie Mellon UniversityProgramming Education & Computational ThinkingDeveloping Countries & HCI for Development (HCI4D)CHI
ClassInSight: Designing Conversation Support Tools to Visualize Classroom Discussion for Personalized Teacher Professional DevelopmentTeaching is one of many professions for which personalized feedback and reflection can help improve dialogue and discussion between the professional and those they serve. However, professional development (PD) is often impersonal as human observation is labor-intensive. Data-driven PD tools in teaching are of growing interest, but open questions about how professionals engage with their data in practice remain. In this paper, we present ClassInSight, a tool that visualizes three levels of teachers’ discussion data and structures reflection. Through 22 reflection sessions and interviews with 5 high school science teachers, we found themes related to dissonance, contextualization, and sustainability in how teachers engaged with their data in the tool and in how their professional vision, the use of professional expertise to interpret events, shifted over time. We discuss guidelines for these conversational support tools to support personalized PD in professions beyond teaching where conversation and interaction are important.2024TNTricia J. Ngoon et al.Carnegie Mellon UniversityInteractive Data VisualizationPrototyping & User TestingCHI
The Potential of Diverse Youth as Stakeholders in Identifying and Mitigating Algorithmic Bias for a Future of Fairer AI"Youth regularly use artificial intelligence (AI) technology, but it is increasingly well-known that AI can have bias. In turn, this bias can cause harm on small and large scales, especially for those underrepresented in tech fields. Recently, users have played active roles in surfacing and mitigating harm from algorithmic bias. However, despite being frequent users of AI, youth have been under-explored as potential contributors to the future of ethical technology. We consider three notions that may be at the root of youth facing barriers to playing an active role in fair AI, which are youth (1) cannot understand the technical aspects of AI, (2) cannot understand the ethical issues around AI, and (3) need protection from serious topics related to bias and injustice. In this study, we worked with youth (N = 30) in first through twelfth grade and parents (N = 6) to explore how youth can be part of identifying algorithmic bias and designing future systems to address problematic technology behavior. We found that youth are capable of identifying and articulating algorithmic bias, often in great detail. Participants suggested different ways users could give feedback for AI that reflects their values of diversity and inclusion. Youth who may have less experience with computing or exposure to societal structures can be supported by peers or adults with more of this knowledge, leading to critical conversations about fair AI. This work illustrates youths' insights, suggesting that they should be integrated in building a future of fair and accountable AI.2023JSJaemarie Solyst et al.Youth PerspectivesCSCW
"An Instructor is [already] able to keep track of 30 students": Students’ Perceptions of Smart Classrooms for Improving Teaching & Their Emergent Understandings of Teaching and LearningMulti-modal classroom sensing systems can collect complex behaviors in the classroom at a scale and precision far greater than human observers to capture learning insights and provide personalized teaching feedback. As students are critical stakeholders in the adoption of smart classrooms for the improvement of teaching, open questions remain in understanding student perspectives on the use of their data to provide insights to instructors. We conducted a Speed Dating with storyboards study to explore student values and boundaries regarding the acceptance of classroom sensing systems in STEM college courses. We found that students have several emergent beliefs about teaching and learning that influence their views towards smart classroom technologies. Students also held contextual views on the boundaries of data use depending on the outcome. Our findings have implications for the design and communication of classroom sensing systems that reconcile student and instructor beliefs around teaching and learning.2023TNTricia J. Ngoon et al.Intelligent Tutoring Systems & Learning AnalyticsSTEM Education & Science CommunicationDIS
“I Would Like to Design”: Black Girls Analyzing and Ideating Fair and Accountable AIArtificial intelligence (AI) literacy is especially important for those who may not be well-represented in technology design. We worked with ten Black girls in fifth and sixth grade from a predominantly Black school to understand their perceptions around fair and accountable AI and how they can have an empowered role in the creation of AI. Thematic analysis of discussions and activity artifacts from a summer camp and after-school session revealed a number of findings around how Black girls: perceive AI, primarily consider fairness as niceness and equality (but may need support considering other notions, such as equity), consider accountability, and envision a just future. We also discuss how the learners can be positioned as decision-making designers in creating AI technology, as well as how AI literacy learning experiences can be empowering.2023JSJaemarie Solyst et al.Carnegie Mellon UniversitySTEM Education & Science CommunicationAlgorithmic Fairness & BiasEmpowerment of Marginalized GroupsCHI
“I Want to Be Unique From Other Robots”: Positioning Girls as Co-creators of Social Robots in Culturally-Responsive Computing EducationRobot technologies have been introduced to computing education to engage learners. This study introduces the concept of co-creation with a robot agent into culturally-responsive computing (CRC). Co-creation with computer agents has previously focused on creating external artifacts. Our work differs by making the robot agent itself the co-created product. Through participatory design activities, we positioned adolescent girls and an agentic social robot as co-creators of the robot's identity. Taking a thematic analysis approach, we examined how girls embody the role of creator and co-creator in this space. We identified themes surrounding who has the power to make decisions, what decisions are made, and how to maintain social relationship. Our findings suggest that co-creation with robot technology is a promising implementation vehicle for realizing CRC.2023YLYinmiao Li et al.Northwestern UniversitySocial Robot InteractionParticipatory DesignCHI
Understanding Instructors' Cultivation of Connectedness in K-12 Online Synchronous Culturally Responsive STEM and Computing EducationCulturally responsive STEM and computing initiatives aim to engage and embolden a diverse range of learners, center their identity and experiences in curriculum, and connect learners to each other and their communities. With an abrupt pivot to online learning at the beginning of 2020, more educational experiences have taken place virtually. We ran a virtual synchronous culturally responsive computing camp and saw that establishing the right environment online to support a good sense of connectedness was challenging. To investigate this further, we interviewed eight K-12 instructors of culturally responsive STEM and computing programs. Three themes emerged on defining and cultivating connectedness in learning experiences, the role of equity in supporting community online, and affordances of being online specific to culturally responsive perspectives. We support our thematic findings with vignettes from the camp data. In this study, we address K-12 culturally responsive STEM and computing instructors’ beliefs, experiences, and approaches regarding cultivating connectedness online. This work fills a gap in understanding instructor perspectives on building in-program and broader community connections online from a culturally responsive STEM and computing lens.2022JSJaemarie Solyst et al.Online Learning; Online LearningCSCW
Fostering Equitable Help-Seeking for K-3 Students in Low Income and Rural ContextsAdaptive Collaborative Learning Support (ACLS) systems improve collaboration and learning for students over individual work or collaboration with non-adaptive support. However, many ACLS systems are ill-suited for rural contexts where students often need multiple kinds of support to complete tasks, may speak languages unsupported by the system, and require more than pre-assigned tutor-tutee student pairs for more equitable learning. We designed an intervention that fosters more equitable help-seeking by automatically detecting student struggles and prompts them to seek help from specific peers that can help. We conducted a mixed-methods experimental study with 98 K-3 students in a rural village in Tanzania over a one-month period, evaluating how the system affects student interactions, system engagement, and student learning. Our intervention increased student interactions by almost 4 times compared to the control condition, increased domain knowledge interactions, and propelled students to engage in more cognitively challenging activities.2021JUJudith Odili Uchidiuno et al.Carnegie Mellon UniversityK-12 Digital Education ToolsCollaborative Learning & Peer TeachingDeveloping Countries & HCI for Development (HCI4D)CHI
Classroom Digital Twins with Instrumentation-Free Gaze TrackingClassroom sensing is an important and active area of research with great potential to improve instruction. Complementing professional observers - the current best practice - automated pedagogical professional development systems can attend every class and capture fine-grained details of all occupants. One particularly valuable facet to capture is class gaze behavior. For students, certain gaze patterns have been shown to correlate with interest in the material, while for instructors, student-centered gaze patterns have been shown to increase approachability and immediacy. Unfortunately, prior classroom gaze-sensing systems have limited accuracy and often require specialized external or worn sensors. In this work, we developed a new computer-vision-driven system that powers a 3D “digital twin” of the classroom and enables whole-class, 6DOF head gaze vector estimation without instrumenting any of the occupants. We describe our open source implementation, and results from both controlled studies and real-world classroom deployments.2021KAKaran Ahuja et al.Carnegie Mellon UniversityEye Tracking & Gaze InteractionMixed Reality WorkspacesCHI
Collective Support and Independent Learning with a Voice-Based Literacy Technology in Rural CommunitiesAccess to literacy is critical to children's futures, but formal education may be insufficient for fostering early literacy, especially in low-resource contexts. Educational technologies used at home may be able to help, but it is unclear whether or how children (and families) will use such technologies at home in rural communities, particularly in low-literate families. In this paper, we investigate these questions with a voice-based literacy technology deployed with families in 8 rural communities in Côte d'Ivoire for 4 months. We use interviews and observations with 37 families to investigate motivations, methods, and barriers for rural families' engagement with a literacy technology accessible via feature phones. We contribute insights into how families view digital literacy as a learning goal, leverage networks of supporters, and over time, transition from explicit to implicit support for children's learning.2020MMMichael A. Madaio et al.Carnegie Mellon UniversityMultilingual & Cross-Cultural Voice InteractionCognitive Impairment & Neurodiversity (Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia)Special Education TechnologyCHI
"Everyone Brings Their Grain of Salt": Designing for Low-Literate Parental Engagement with a Mobile Literacy Technology in Côte d'IvoireSignificant research has demonstrated the crucial role that parents play in supporting the development of children's literacy, but in contexts where adults may lack sufficient literacy in the target language, it is not clear how to most effectively scaffold parental support for children's literacy. Prior work has designed technologies to teach children literacy directly, but this work has not focused on designing for low-literate parents, particularly for multilingual and developing contexts. In this paper, we describe findings from a qualitative study conducted in several regions of rural Côte d'Ivoire to understand Ivorian parents' beliefs, desires, and preferences for French literacy. We discuss themes that emerged from these interviews, surrounding ideas of trust, collaboration, and culturally-responsive design, and we highlight implications for the design of technology to scaffold low-literate parental support for children's literacy.2019MMMichael A. Madaio et al.Carnegie Mellon UniversityMicromobility (E-bike, E-scooter) InteractionSpecial Education TechnologyDeveloping Countries & HCI for Development (HCI4D)CHI