Gaowei Chen

Thomas J McKenna, Ingvill Rasmussen, Sten Ludvigsen et al.

Educational dialogue -- the collaborative exchange of ideas through talk -- is widely recognized as a catalyst for deeper learning and critical thinking in and across contexts. At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly emerged as a powerful force in education, with the potential to address major challenges, personalize learning, and innovate teaching practices. However, these advances come with significant risks: rapid AI development can undermine human agency, exacerbate inequities, and outpace our capacity to guide its use with sound policy. Human learning presupposes cognitive efforts and social interaction (dialogues). In response to this evolving landscape, an international workshop titled "Educational Dialogue: Moving Thinking Forward" convened 19 leading researchers from 11 countries in Cambridge (September 1-3, 2025) to examine the intersection of AI and educational dialogue. This AI-focused strand of the workshop centered on three critical questions: (1) When is AI truly useful in education, and when might it merely replace human effort at the expense of learning? (2) Under what conditions can AI use lead to better dialogic teaching and learning? (3) Does the AI-human partnership risk outpacing and displacing human educational work, and what are the implications? These questions framed two days of presentations and structured dialogue among participants.

Yimeng Sun, Haiyang Xin, Qiannan Niu et al.

This mixed-methods study examined computational thinking (CT) development among 93 pre-high school students in a five-day AI agent creation workshop using CocoFlow, a no-code platform. Integrating pre-post assessments, behavioral logs, and interviews, we investigated CT development and how initial CT levels shape learning trajectories. Results revealed significant improvements in abstract thinking (effect size d = 0.71) and algorithmic thinking (effect size d = 0.70). Hierarchical regression identified iterative testing engagement as a predictor of self-efficacy gains (beta = 0.20, p = 0.05). Notably, students with moderate initial CT levels demonstrated substantially greater gains than both high-CT and low-CT peers, revealing an Optimal Development Zone effect (eta squared = 0.55). Qualitative analysis showed moderate-CT students exhibited adaptive expertise, while high-CT students risked over-engineering and low-CT students struggled with task decomposition. These findings challenge linear learning assumptions and provide evidence for differentiated scaffolding in CT education.

Yimeng Sun, Haiyang Xin, Shuang Li et al.

This study investigates teachers design behaviors and cognitive underpinnings when designing multi-agent instructional workflows. Analyzing behavioral logs (N=61), cluster and Markov analyses identified three archetypes: Systematic Optimizers iteratively refining complex architectures; Prolific Creators rapidly prototyping pragmatic tools via scaffolding; and Passive Observers exhibiting polarized expert-novice profiles. Subsequent artifact (n=15) and interview (n=12) analyses reveal AI-TPACK integration emerges from a dynamic interplay of systems thinking, pedagogical beliefs, and self-efficacy, not merely from the possession of discrete knowledge. These findings call for differentiated scaffolding responsive to teachers cognitive-behavioral diversity.

Haiyang Xin, Qiannan Niu, Shuang Li et al.

This two-cycle formative intervention study examined why teachers disengage from AI agent creation after professional development - a low engagement paradox - and tested whether systemic redesign could address it. Cycle 1 (N=218) revealed that despite completing comprehensive TPD, 87 percent of teachers ceased creating within three weeks, with behavioral tracking and interview analysis identifying systemic contradictions as the source of psychological need frustration rather than capacity deficits. Cycle 2 (N=26) implemented Cultural-Historical Activity Theory and Self-Determination Theory - driven redesign directly targeting diagnosed contradictions, achieving synchronized enhancement of both capacity and willingness. The findings reframe implementation failure as a rational response to need-thwarting systems and offer a replicable CHAT - SDT diagnostic framework for transformative professional development.

Shuang Li, Haiyang Xin, Yimeng Sun et al.

Effective collaboration requires Socially Shared Regulation (SSRL), but students often lack these skills. This study introduces the MIRACLE (Multi-Agent Intelligent Regulation to Advance Collaborative Learning Environment) system, which supports SSRL by orchestrating metacognitive regulation and proactively providing emotional and motivational support. We conducted a quasi-experimental study with 90 fifth-grade students. The experimental group (n=42) used a collaborative platform CocoNote equipped with MIRACLE, while the control group (n=48) used the same platform with a general GPT assistant. Quantitative results show the MIRACLE group achieved significant gains across SSRL phases (Planning, Monitoring, Reflection) and produced higher-quality collaborative artifacts compared to the control group. Qualitative findings indicate students perceived MIRACLE as an effective facilitator for cognitive, regulatory, and emotional support. This study demonstrates that specialized, orchestrated AI systems are more effective than generic AI in enhancing SSRL.

Deliang Wang, Chao Yang, Gaowei Chen

Students' academic emotions significantly influence their social behavior and learning performance. Traditional approaches to automatically and accurately analyze these emotions have predominantly relied on supervised machine learning algorithms. However, these models often struggle to generalize across different contexts, necessitating repeated cycles of data collection, annotation, and training. The emergence of Vision-Language Models (VLMs) offers a promising alternative, enabling generalization across visual recognition tasks through zero-shot prompting without requiring fine-tuning. This study investigates the potential of VLMs to analyze students' academic emotions via facial expressions in an online learning environment. We employed two VLMs, Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct and Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct, to analyze 5,000 images depicting confused, distracted, happy, neutral, and tired expressions using zero-shot prompting. Preliminary results indicate that both models demonstrate moderate performance in academic facial expression recognition, with Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct outperforming Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct. Notably, both models excel in identifying students' happy emotions but fail to detect distracted behavior. Additionally, Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct exhibits relatively high performance in recognizing students' confused expressions, highlighting its potential for practical applications in identifying content that causes student confusion.