CMU Human-Computer Interaction Institute

From smart tutoring systems to AI in the classroom, dozens of HCII researchers debuted work at the Festival of Learning last month, highlighting new ways technology can help every student learn better.

The 2026 Festival of Learning featured three unique conferences — Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED), Learning at Scale (L@S), and Educational Data Mining (EDM) — and one shared focus on the future of learning.

A few highlights from the HCII community include:
- Professor Vincent Aleven delivered a keynote at AIED
- University Professor Ken Koedinger received an AIED Lifetime Achievement Award
- and one paper received an honorable mention award at EDM “Improving Hybrid Human-AI Tutoring by Differentiating Human Tutor Roles Based on Student Needs”
- plus demos, workshops, and more!

Visit the story to learn more about our highlights at the 2026 Festival of Learning
🔗 https://hcii.cmu.edu/news/cmu-festival-learning-2026

From smart tutoring systems to AI in the classroom, dozens of HCII researchers debuted new work at the Festival of Learning last month, highlighting new ways technology can help every student learn better.

The 2026 Festival of Learning featured three unique conferences — Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED), Learning at Scale (L@S), and Educational Data Mining (EDM) — and one shared focus on the future of learning.

A few highlights from the HCII community include:

- Vincent Aleven delivered a keynote at AIED

- Ken Koedinger received an AIED Lifetime Achievement Award

- one paper “Improving Hybrid Human-AI Tutoring by Differentiating Human Tutor Roles Based on Student Needs,” received an honorable mention award at EDM

- plus student demos, workshops, and more!

Go learn more about our colleagues' work at the Festival of Learning at the News link in our bio.

Hats off to the MHCI Class of 2026! 🎓✨
The 1-year Master of Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University is both a marathon and a sprint. Students, thank you for showing up every day and bringing so much energy, curiosity and empathy to our community this year.

Wicked Problems lie ahead, but we know you are ready to tackle them.
Just Thinking Aloud here, the future of HCI looks bright thanks to you all.
Oh - Yes, and - we are so proud of you! Congratulations and keep in touch, !

📸: MHCI students, faculty and staff at the farewell party yesterday

Today we are kicking off the 2026 LearnLab Summer School! We are so excited to spend the week with 100+ friends while building learning solutions with real-world impact.

Our LearnLab tracks this year include:

🧠🤖 Intelligent Tutoring Systems

🔎📈 Educational Data Mining

🛠️💻 Building online courses with OLI

💻📑 Computer Science Education Research and

📊📚 Data Science for Education.

We look forward to building and learning with you all this week.

From advancements in machine knitting to AI design sprints, HCII and CMU authors contributed to several research papers accepted to DIS 2026. Congratulations, authors!

The ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) is an interdisciplinary conference where research can focus on design theory, methods and technologies, as well as cultural, economic and political impacts.

🏆 Best Paper Award
Knit Joinery: Incorporating Multifunctional Materials with Single-bed Machine Knitting
Yi-Chin Lee, Vernelle A. A. Noel, Scott E Hudson, James McCann, Lea Albaugh

🏅Honorable Mention Award
Designing Worker-Led Documentation Practices: How Unionized Cleaners Articulate Harm Beyond Reporting
Franchesca Spektor, Shivani Kapania, Minjung Park, Olivia Terry, Jodi Forlizzi, Sarah E Fox

Scroll through to see the first pages of several of our papers at DIS.

🔗 Details: https://hcii.cmu.edu/news/cmu-dis-2026

AI is taking over the toy aisle. Are our kids ready? 🤖🧸

Don't miss this new, must-watch TED Talk, "How to raise kids who question AI," featuring HCII Assistant Research Professor Randi Williams.

After thousands of conversations with children worldwide, AI education researcher Williams explains how kids interact with technology and why the next era of digital literacy starts at your dinner table.

🔗 Learn more and watch the Play at TED Talk: https://hcii.cmu.edu/news/williams-ted-talk-kids-ai