The Learning Informatics Lab (LIL) would like to congratulate the four LIL Summer Fellows for 2023. Püren Öncel will be researching engagement and affect during learning with LIL Co-Directors Pani Kendeou and Caitlin Mills. Lauren Flynn will explore scaffolding in open-ended debugging with LIL core faculty David DeLiema, Meixi, and Laura Allen. Jasmine Kim will examine epistemic themes in peer review with Laura Allen and David DeLiema. Justine Scattarelli will research people’s knowledge and data sharing behavior with Xiaoran Sun, Pani Kendeou, and Caitlin Mills.
Category: News
LIL Co-Director Pani Kendeou and Colleagues Receive IES Grant for iCODE Project
Panayiota (Pani) Kendeou, Guy Bond Chair in Reading in the Department of Educational Psychology, Danielle Dupuis, director of the Research Methodology Consulting Center, and colleagues have been awarded a three-year, $1.9 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The project is called iCODE: Investigating and Scaffolding Students’ Code Comprehension Processes to Improve Learning, Engagement, and Retention. The researchers aim to develop an innovative educational technology that teaches coding to computer science (CS) and non-CS majors. Read more.
LIL Affiliates Present at ICLS
Faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students from CEHD’s Department of Educational Psychology (Ed Psych), Department of Curriculum & Instruction (C&I), and Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development (OLPD) presented at the 2022 International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) June 6 – 10.
LIL Faculty Presenters
- Bodong Chen, associate professor, C&I
- David DeLiema, assistant professor, Ed Psych
- Meixi, assistant professor, Comparative and International Development Education, OLPD
LIL Graduate Student Presenters
- Megan Goeke, PhD student, Ed Psych
- Ashley Hufnagle, PhD student, Ed Psych
- Shelby Weisen, PhD student, Ed Psych
- Gina Ristani, PhD student, Ed Psych
- Tayler Loiselle, PhD student, Ed Psych
- Samuel Bullard, PhD student, Ed Psych
- Joseph Burey, PhD student, Ed Psych
- Xinran Zhu, PhD student, C&I
- Hong Shui, PhD student, C&I
Accepted Presentations
Baker, J., & DeLiema, D. (2022). Mathematizing embodied play and failure. In A. Simpson, C. Williams-Pierce, E. Shokeen, & N. Katirci (Co-organizers), The nature(s) of embodied mathematical failure.
Bullard, S. J., & Varma, K. (2022). Cognitive Processing in Online Communities of Inquiry.
Burey, J., Kim, J., McMaster, K.L., Kendeou, P. (2022) Does it work for everyone?The effect of ELCII on kindergarteners’ inference skill development.
Chen, B. (2022). Connectivity for knowledge building: A framework of socio-semantic network motif analysis.
DeLiema, D., Goeke, M., Hussein, B., Valerie, J., Anderson, C., Varma, K., Chen, B., Salehi, S., & Bernacki, M. (2022). Playful learning following deviations: A mixture of tinkering, causal explanations, and revision rationales.
Goeke, M. & DeLiema, D. (2022). Attenuation and amplification of agency through goal announcements in a makerspace.
Goeke, M. & Loiselle, T. (2022). Do current visions of engineering literacy capture family engineering practices? A microgenetic analysis of engineering learning in a museum makerspace.
Meixi., Marin, A., Nzinga, K., Palomar, M., Elliott, E., Elliott, S., Eagle Shield, A., Shaw, M., Scott, M., Zuniga-Ruiz, S. (2022). Storytelling and storylistening towards collective learning and relational becoming [Symposium].
Meixi., Dorr, S., Keefe, D., Diaz, V. (2022). Designing mixed reality with canoe relationalities, Indigenous technologies, and embodied knowledges.
Ristani, G., Varma, K., Van Boekel, M., & Varma, S. (2022). Understanding the factors influencing persistence: What can novices learn from experts?
Weisen, S., Hufnagle, A. S., & Van Boekel, M. (2022). Investigating students’ memory for feedback in a naturalistic classroom.
Chan, J. Y.-C (2022) Cognitive developmental mechanisms of mathematical learning.
Zhu, X., Shui, H., & Chen, B. (2022). Connecting social reading and writing: A social annotation synthesizer tool.
Wiebe, J., Slotta, J., Smørdal, O., Amundrud, A., Rasmussen, I., Zhang, J., Chen, M., Hod, Y., Rahmian, L., Kashi, S., Kalir, J., Zhu, X., Shui, H., & Chen, B., Joshi, I. (2022). A cross-cutting introduction to technologies for learning communities.
LIL Faculty Dr. Xiaoran Sun Receives University Research Grant
Xiaoran Sun, assistant professor in the Department Family Social Science, has received a University of Minnesota Grants-in-Aid of Research, Artistry and Scholarship for the project “Examining Teenagers’ Overnight Smartphone Use and Its Implications for Well-Being with High-Intensity Smartphone Data.” During her postdoc at Stanford University, Dr. Sun led the collection of a new, innovative data set as a part of the Human Screenome Project. Now, Dr. Sun will use this data to better understand how teenagers use smartphones overnight and what implications overnight smartphone may have on their well-being. Read more.
LIL Faculty Drs. Varma & Konstan receive President’s Award for Outstanding Service
The President’s Award for Outstanding Service recognizes University of Minnesota faculty for going above and beyond their regular duties to provide exceptional service to the University community.


Dr. Keisha Varma, associate professor in Educational Psychology and associate vice provost for the Office of Equity and Diversity, and Dr. Joseph A. Konstan, professor in Computer Science and Engineering and associate dean for research of the College of Science and Engineering, are 2022 recipients of the prestigious University-wide award.
LIL Postdoc Mengchen Su presents at the Association for Education Finance and Policy Conference

In March, 2022, Learning Informatics Lab Postdoctoral Associate Mengchen Su presented a study in poster session at the 47th Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) conference (Denver, CO). Her poster, titled “Head or Heart? Revisioning School Accountability for Whole Child development,” builds on the premise that children’s cognitive abilities and emotional and social capabilities are vital for their school and lifelong success. As such, her study examines the relationship between multilayered protective factors (family, school) and adolescents’ academic, social, and emotional well-being. Study results highlight the importance of building a connected, positive community involving both family and school for adolescents to flourish under the Every Student Success Act (ESSA).
First LIL Research Symposium
The Learning Informatics Lab hosted its inaugural Research Symposium Wednesday, March 16, 2022. Featured research ranged from educational technologies to assess and support online learning, to self-directed learning in game and maker-space contexts. For a full list of research topics and presenters, see here.




PhD Students Xinran Zhu & Hong Shui Win ICCE Best Student Paper Award
Learning Technologies Ph.D. students Xinran Zhu and Hong Shui, along with LIL Co-Director Bodong Chen, won Best Student Paper at the 29th International Conference on Computers in Education. Their paper, Designing Support for Productive Social Interaction and Knowledge Co-construction in Collaborative Annotation, introduces a general scaffolding framework of participation roles to support collaborative learning activities in online classes. A part of the Collaborative Annotation in College Classrooms Project, their study used a web annotation tool, Hypothesis, to pilot the framework in a fully online undergraduate course in Fall 2020. Social network analysis and content analysis of students’ annotation data were conducted to examine how the framework facilitated social interaction and knowledge co-construction in the online class.
Their paper was also nominated for Best Research Paper.
LIL Faculty Chen, Scharber, and DeLiema Awarded NSF Grant
LIL Faculty Bodong Chen, Cassie Scharber, and David DeLiema were awarded an NSF grant to develop a justice-oriented, tech-enhanced learning program that integrates critical data literacies in science and social studies. “DataX: Exploring Justice-Oriented Data Science with Secondary School Students” is a project that aims to help St. Paul Public School students learn how to use data in meaningful and authentic ways. The two-year project will iteratively advance curriculum, a web-based platform, and pedagogical design components of the DataX program.
See the full abstract here.
New Publication by LIL Faculty Cassie Scharber
Lana Peterson and Cassie Scharber recently published an article in collaboration with their long-term community partners in Austin Public Schools, MN describing the ways this K-12 school district shifted to emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read the full article here.