The SESAME Colloquium

The SESAME Colloquium offers talks on a variety of subjects related to the learning sciences.

Unless otherwise noted, in-person talks are given on Thursdays from 12:00 to 1:30 pm in room 4101, Berkeley Way West (2121 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704). Here is the Zoom link for talks that are given remotely or in hybrid format.

We are now starting these colloquium sessions close to 12:00 (not "Berkeley Time"), with a brief puzzle, icebreaker, or other social activity.

Contact sesame.colloquium@berkeley.edu to be added to our mailing list.

Videos of many past talks may be found on our Colloquium YouTube channel.

Contact sesame.colloquium@berkeley.edu if you are interested in speaking in this series, or if you'd like to suggest a speaker. 

Here is information for speakers.

January 22: James Tanton

Dots: A Global Mathematics Phenomenon

James Tanton

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

On October 10, 2017, the world witnessed the launch of the inaugural Global Math Week, during which more than one million students and teachers from 168 countries and territories engaged together in a single, joyful piece of classroom mathematics. Since then, the program has grown organically to reach more than 7.8 million learners worldwide (as far as we can count!).

At the heart of this global movement lies a single mathematical story—one that connects grade school, high school, and college level mathematics (and beyond!) through a simple yet astonishing visual construct.

In this session, we will explore the remarkable power of dots and see how this one visual idea can lead to deep and surprising mathematical insights. Participants will experience firsthand what joyful, creative mathematics can feel like in practice. Please bring pencil and paper—and perhaps an extra pair of socks, as this session may well knock your first pair right off!

About the speaker

James Tanton (PhD, Princeton 1994, mathematics) writes books, makes videos, advises on curriculum, consults with teachers, and gives demonstration classes and professional development sessions across the globe. He has taught mathematics both at the university and high-school levels and is absolutely committed to promoting effective and joyful mathematics thinking, learning, and doing at all levels of the education spectrum.

James has recently arrived to the San Francisco Bay Area and currently serves as an Associate Coordinator of Public Programs for BSE. He is also the Mathematician‑at‑Large for the Mathematical Association of America, co-founder of the Global Math Project, and Chief Mathematics Officer for SmartWithIt.

January 29: "What's on Your Mind?"

Title "What's on Your Mind?"

This meeting is an opportunity for students to have an informal conversation about what they're thinking about these days.

February 5: Kamal Chawla

Mind the Gaps: Robust Strategies to Handle Missingness in Datasets

Kamal Chawla

College of Education and Human Development, University of Maine

Abstract

Missing data are a common challenge in education research—whether in classroom-based studies, large-scale assessments, or administrative datasets. Yet researchers often rely on ad hoc strategies such as listwise deletion or mean substitution that can introduce bias and underestimate uncertainty, ultimately leading to misleading conclusions about students, teachers, and schools. This talk offers a practical, evidence-based roadmap for addressing missing data in ways that strengthen the validity and interpretability of educational research findings.

I begin by unpacking the mechanisms behind missingness (MCAR, MAR, MNAR) using intuitive, education-relevant examples (e.g., student absences, skipped survey items) to clarify when “ignorable” approaches are appropriate. I then compare modern estimation methods—such as full-information maximum likelihood and multiple imputation using machine learning—highlighting when each is most effective, how to avoid common pitfalls (e.g., over- or under-imputation), and how to handle complexities like classroom clustering, nonlinear relationships, and interaction effects. Participants will leave with a clear understanding of how to identify missing data mechanisms in their own research and select appropriate strategies to address them.

The session concludes with guidance on conducting transparent sensitivity analyses (e.g., delta adjustments, pattern-mixture models) to evaluate how conclusions might change under different assumptions—an essential step for making robust and responsible inferences in education research.

About the speaker

Dr. Kamal Chawla is a statistician, meta-analyst, and missing data specialist who serves as an Assistant Professor of Education & Applied Quantitative Methods. His work is at the intersection of machine learning, missing data, and meta-analysis, and he is dedicated to leveraging advanced quantitative methods to address critical challenges in education.

Dr. Chawla’s research agenda is twofold: methodologically, he focuses on developing and refining research methods through data science and machine learning techniques to produce robust and unbiased outcomes. On the applied side, his research focuses on enhancing student learning in elementary and secondary classrooms by developing teaching strategies that are not only effective but also tailored to the diverse needs of individual students. By integrating these cutting-edge techniques, Dr. Chawla’s work aims to bridge educational gaps, empower students from all backgrounds, and contribute to a more prosperous society.

February 12: Michelle Wilkerson

Show Your Work: A Design-Based Research Project to Introduce Jupyter Notebooks to K-12 Educators

Michelle Wilkerson

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

Jupyter notebooks are popular computational notebooks that combine computer code, output, and rich text in a single document. They have been widely adopted as a free and open source tool, and form the foundation of contemporary computing environments such as Google Colab and Deepnote. Although originally developed for scientific research, Jupyter notebooks are also increasingly used in education. Berkeley's “Introduction to Data Science” courses (data6.org; data8.org), UCLA’s CourseKata high school mathematics curriculum (coursekata.org), and ProDaBi, a data/AI curricular package for secondary students (www.prodabi.de/en/) all heavily rely on the Jupyter infrastructure. However, there is growing evidence that additional support is needed for Jupyter notebooks to be productively leveraged in classroom settings. Most existing work describes a variety of technical and conceptual difficulties that teachers and students encounter when working with computational notebooks. And while notebooks have potential to support deep epistemic engagement, without careful design or preparation they can be used shallowly as simple interactive textbooks, rather than knowledge-building tools.

In this talk, I'll share our work developing and conducting basic research with a suite of free, open-source, asynchronous introductory Jupyter notebooks designed for K-12 educators with little to no prior experience. In contrast to typical “intro notebooks” which focus on the technical features of Jupyter, the Show Your Work project builds on theory and findings from the learning sciences and science education to introduce computational notebooks as epistemic tools within specific school subject domains, guiding educators to explore the questions: What role might notebooks play in my specific classroom, for my specific students? What does it feel like to conduct an investigation using a Jupyter notebook? What epistemic and communicative practices are foregrounded and backgrounded by computational notebooks? I will present preliminary analyses from an ongoing study in which we are conducting repeated semi-clinical cognitive interviews with 30 pre-service and in-service teachers as they interact with our materials and become familiar with Jupyter notebooks and their potential classroom applications over time.

About the speaker

I'm an Associate Professor and Director of the CoRE Lab, celebrating my 10th year at the BSE! Broadly, I leverage the learning sciences and design-based research methods to study how computing is introduced and understood by students from the middle grades through early college, with special attention to how young people might come to see computing as an expressive and humanistic endeavor. I especially focus on scientific computing, that is, the teaching and learning of computational tools that help students to analyze, understand, and model the world around us.

As far as accomplishments go, my art teacher recently praised my identification of appropriate watercolor techniques (note she did not say execution of those techniques). I hold a double Bachelors in Mathematics and Education from the University of San Diego, a PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University where I was a member of the Center for Connected Learning ("the NetLogo group"), and I worked in the Department of Education at Tufts University for five years before coming to Berkeley (Go Jumbos).

February 19: David Menendez

Discovering the world of viruses: How children think and learn about germs and illness

David Menendez

Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic showed the importance of having a robust understanding of illness transmission. However, topics related to illness and germs are rarely covered in elementary school science curricula, despite aligning with the cross-cutting themes of the Next Generation Science Standards. I will present recent empirical work examining how 5- to 12-year-old children across the United States think about illness and viruses. This work shows how children understand the observable processes involved in illness transmission, but have difficulty reasoning about the unobservable aspects, including the nature of viruses.

Then, I present the results of an at-home educational intervention where children read a storybook detailing the observable and unobservable aspects of illness transmission. Critically, we manipulated whether detailing unobservable processes, and whether the representations in the book were realistic or anthropomorphized. This study shows that storybooks are an effective way to teach children about viruses and illness, provided they explain unobservable aspects. Children learned equally well from anthropomorphized and realistic books. This work highlights how children have learn complex scientific topics at an early age.

About the speaker

David is an assistant professor of Psychology at the University of California-Santa Cruz. His research examines how people learn concepts in formal and informal settings. He has explored how children learn science concepts through conversations with parents, when and why people change the strategies they use to solve mathematics problems, and how visual representations influence learning and generalization.

He is also interested in the role of culture and socialization practices on development, including how participating in cultural rituals shapes children’s conceptual development, and how different communities within the United States think about illness.

February 26: Xiaoran (Ella) Li  [in room 4310 Berkeley Way West]

Meeting in room 4310 Berkeley Way West

From Data to Design: Analyzing and Supporting Collaborative Learning with Multimodal Analytics

Xiaoran (Ella) Li

School of Linguistic Sciences and Language Resources, Beijing Language and Culture University

Abstract

Collaborative learning has become an increasingly important approach in contemporary education. However, successful collaboration does not occur automatically. Collaborative groups often encounter a range of cognitive, socio-emotional, motivational and environmental challenges that may hinder productive collaboration. Understanding the underlying dynamics of collaborative learning processes—and designing appropriate technological supports based on these dynamics—is therefore essential.

This talk addresses collaborative learning from two complementary perspectives: (1) multimodal data–driven analysis of collaborative processes and (2) the design and implementation of technology to support collaboration.

From an analytical perspective, this talk is primarily grounded in the framework of social regulation of learning, examining the challenges collaborative groups encounter and how they regulate them. By comparing behavioral sequences between high- and low-performing groups, the talk highlights how adaptive regulatory behaviors shape collaborative outcomes. In addition, it introduces how physiological data (e.g., heart rate) can be leveraged to further triangulate and validate the identified patterns. This section will also briefly expand to consider alternative analytical perspectives for studying collaborative processes.

From a design perspective, the talk presents technology-enhanced tools developed based on empirically identified collaboration patterns. It discusses their implementation and impact in authentic, semester-long collaborative contexts, including collaborative writing and collaborative problem-solving.

Together, the presentation aims to bridge learning analytics and educational design, illustrating how data-driven insights can inform the development of effective support for collaborative learning.

About the speaker

Xiaoran (Ella) Li is an Assistant Professor at the School of Linguistic Sciences and Language Resources, Beijing Language and Culture University. She is currently a two-year Visiting Researcher at the Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley.

With an interdisciplinary background spanning learning analytics, artificial intelligence, and educational technology, her research focuses on collaborative learning. She investigates the underlying dynamics of collaboration through multimodal data analysis, with particular attention to physiological measures as indicators of coordination and regulation. Building on these empirical insights, she develops technology-enhanced tools designed to support collaborative learning in authentic contexts, including collaborative writing, collaborative scientific inquiry, and collaborative problem solving.

During her time at Berkeley, her research centers on embodied cognition in collaborative virtual reality (VR) environments, large-scale movement data analysis, and the role of intelligent agents in shaping collaborative learning processes.

March 5: Julien Putz

Title Enacting genericity: Coming to see the general in the particular while proving with manipulatives, diagrams, and symbols

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

A pervasive form of mathematical reasoning involves using a specific instance to draw conclusions about a general class. In mathematics education, researchers have conceptualized this practice as reasoning with “generic examples” and proposed it as a scaffold supporting students’ transition from informal exploration to the construction of proofs. Whereas existing research has largely investigated generic examples in terms of their epistemic status or didactic use within proving, it has paid less attention to the cognitive processes by which learners come to perceive a particular instance as standing for the general. Adopting an enactivist perspective, we conceptualize genericity not as an intrinsic property of an inscription but as a subjective cognitive achievement.

We report on findings from task-based clinical interviews with five undergraduates in a STEM education course, interleaved with brief micro-phenomenological probes of lived experience. Participants worked through a sequence of proof tasks across registers (manipulatives, diagrams, symbols) designed to elicit generic reasoning. Through micro-genetic, multimodal analysis, we derived a three-phase model of enacting genericity: reaching, in which one case is transformed into neighboring cases; foregrounding, in which case-invariant structures become salient; and contracting, in which these structures are condensed into portable semiotic forms. Illustrative case analyses show how these micro-actions enable learners to treat an example-based argument as general. On this basis, we propose design principles for selecting and sequencing cognitively ergonomic examples that afford reaching, foregrounding, and contracting, and we argue that proofs retain explanatory power for learners when they emerge as contractions of prior example-based exploration.

About the speaker

Julien Putz is a PhD candidate in the Graduate Group in Science and Mathematics Education (SESAME) at UC Berkeley, with a designated emphasis in Cognitive Science. Working with Prof. Dor Abrahamson in the Embodied Design Research Laboratory, he investigates the perceptual and imaginative processes that are part of diagrammatic reasoning in mathematics. His research draws on embodied and enactive approaches to cognition and combines first-person methods such as micro-phenomenological interviews with third-person measures such as eye-tracking.

Focusing on proving and problem solving, he examines how learners engage with diagrams through perceptual and imaginative actions such as foregrounding or imaginatively moving parts of a figure. He also investigates how such covert actions can lead learners to see a particular example as generic—that is, as standing for a broader class and carrying general mathematical structure.

March 12: Magdalena Kersting

[Via Zoom only]

From intuition to intention: co-constructing design principles for embodied science instruction with teachers

Magdalena Kersting

University of Copenhagen, Department of Science Education

Abstract

Here's a puzzle: science teachers regularly use movement, gesture, and physical experience in their instruction. But ask them why it works, or when to deploy these approaches strategically, and you will often get a shrug. Meanwhile, embodied cognition research offers compelling theoretical frameworks and insights that rarely make it into classrooms. What happens when we bring these two worlds together?

In this talk, I present findings from SENSES (Science Education Network for Supporting Embodied Sense-Making), a participatory network in which science education researchers and secondary science teachers in Denmark spent 12 months collaboratively developing design principles for embodied instruction. Through iterative cycles of co-design workshops, classroom implementation, and collective reflection, we transformed tacit pedagogical intuitions into explicit, actionable principles – while deepening our collective understanding of embodied learning processes along the way.

I'll share the design principles that emerged and explore what the process reveals about building productive research-practice partnerships. But I'm equally interested in the meta-question: What can embodied cognition research learn from science education practice? I'll argue that collaborative inquiry, honoring both theoretical and practical expertise, generates insights neither could develop alone – and that the messy realities of classroom practice do not just apply theory, they can refine and extend it.

About the speaker

Magdalena Kersting is an assistant professor of science education at the University of Copenhagen, where she explores how embodied experiences shape scientific understanding. Drawing on an interdisciplinary background in mathematics, physics, and science communication, she leads the SENSES network, bringing together researchers and teachers to develop embodied approaches to science instruction, and co-founded IMPRESS, an international seminar series on modern physics education in collaboration with CERN.

March 19: Mengyan Fang and Josh Medrano

Winning at the Starting Line? Latent Profiles of Executive Function and Social-Emotional Skills at Kindergarten Entry and Their Association with Long-term Math Trajectories

Mengyan Fang

School of Education, Shaanxi Normal University, China

Josh Medrano

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

Early mathematical development is a complex, multidimensional process influenced by both cognitive and non-cognitive systems. While executive function (EF) and social-emotional learning (SEL) are known to predict math achievement, traditional variable-centered methods often fail to capture how these skills co-occur within individual children.

This study employs a person-centered approach using data from the ECLS-K:2011 cohort (N ≈ 18,150) to (1) identify distinct latent profiles of children based on their EF and SEL skills at kindergarten entry, (2) examine how demographic factors such as SES and gender relate to profile membership, and (3) investigate how these profiles predict math growth trajectories from kindergarten through fifth grade. Latent Profile Analysis will be conducted using Fall kindergarten indicators, focusing exclusively on EF (working memory and cognitive flexibility) and SEL skills (teacher-reported self-control and interpersonal skills), followed by Latent Growth Curve Modeling to estimate math trajectories across multiple waves.

We expect to identify three to four distinct profiles—such as “Multidimensionally Strong,” “Cognitively-Dominant,” “Socially-Dominant,” and “At-Risk”—and hypothesize that the “Multidimensionally Strong” profile will exhibit the highest initial status and most rapid growth in math. Furthermore, we anticipate that high SEL skills may serve as a protective factor, potentially buffering the negative impact of lower EF on long-term math development. These findings will underscore the importance of viewing school readiness as an integrated, “whole-child” system, informing targeted interventions that support children’s regulatory and academic development simultaneously during the transition to formal schooling.

About the speakers

Mengyan Fang is a doctoral candidate at the School of Education, Shaanxi Normal University, China, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley for one year. Her research focuses on early childhood education and development, particularly how executive function and socio-emotional abilities in preschool children interact with mathematics learning. She uses quantitative data analysis to explore the relationships and longitudinal mechanisms between children’s executive function, socio-emotional abilities, and mathematical skills. During her time at Berkeley, her research primarily focuses on the long-term impact of children’s executive function and socio-emotional abilities on academic development, further revealing how these key abilities jointly predict and shape the developmental trajectory of children’s early mathematical abilities.

Josh Medrano is a postdoctoral scholar in the Berkeley School of Education. His research examines how individuals learn, specifically how cognitive processes and context interact during learning. His research focuses on executive functions (EFs) and their role in math and science learning; at BSE, he has been examining how instructional tools like scratch paper and fading instruction benefit students’ problem-solving skills by reducing the demand on working memory. He is also interested in external factors, such as students’ physical environment and family and cultural background, that help contextualize children’s cognitive developmental trajectories. His work uses approaches in learning, cognitive, and developmental sciences, with methods such as behavioral observations and experiments in the lab and the classroom.

April 2: Geoffrey Saxe

Learning in and out of school: A cultural-developmental perspective

Geoffrey Saxe

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

This brownbag examines learning in collective practices—such as recurring classroom activities and the everyday play of toddlers and caregivers—where mathematical understanding emerges through moment-to-moment activity. Traditional approaches to learning in such settings often emphasize individual development (ontogenesis) while giving less attention to how conventional representations and ideas are reproduced and transformed in community talk and action (sociogenesis). I argue for an integrated cultural-developmental framework that centers microgenesis—the moment-to-moment construction of meaning in activity—as the key link between individual and sociocultural developmental processes. Microgenesis is defined here as the construction of numerical meanings as individuals use representational forms to serve evolving cognitive functions in collective practice.

Drawing on three research programs, I illustrate how tracing form–function relations across micro-, onto-, and sociogenetic processes illuminates learning in and out of school. The first examines mathematical learning among the Oksapmin of Papua New Guinea, who traditionally use a 27-body-part number system, documenting shifts in form–function relations in practices of exchange and schooling across four field visits spanning more than 30 years. The second focuses on early number development among 2½- and 4½-year-olds in Brooklyn, NY, analyzing family practices that support children’s expanding uses of number words for functions such as cardinality, comparison, and reproduction of quantities. The third investigates children’s developing understandings of integers and fractions, with particular attention to instructional practices that support new uses of representational forms such as number lines, drawing on interview, design-based, and experimental studies.

Together, these projects demonstrate the value of a cultural-developmental approach that coordinates analyses of moment-to-moment activity (microgenesis), individual development (ontogenesis), and the evolution of community representations and practices (sociogenesis) for advancing theory and informing educational design.

About the speaker

Geoffrey Saxe is Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School at UC Berkeley. His research explores the mutual shaping of cultural practices and cognitive development, spanning diverse settings—from NYC family interactions and US classrooms to communities in Papua New Guinea and Brazil. Supported by the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Institute of Education Sciences, his work has been honored with fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. 

Saxe has authored influential books, including Social Processes in Early Number Development (1987) and Culture and Cognitive Development (1991). His book, Cultural Development of Mathematical Ideas: Papua New Guinea Studies (2012), achieved the rare distinction of winning Outstanding Book Awards from the Cognitive Development Society, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Psychological Association. A member of the National Academy of Education and an inaugural Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), he served as President of the Jean Piaget Society and Editor of Human Development. He was recognized with two AERA Presidential Citations in both 2010 and 2022.

April 9: James Tanton

Circle-ometry (aka Trigonometry): The Story and the Mathematics

James Tanton

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

Why is the trigonometric ratio “opposite over hypotenuse” called sine, a word derived from the Latin sinus, meaning a “twisty” or “curved” feature? What curious historical quirk led to this name? And why is the tangent ratio named using a term drawn from geometry?

In this session, we will explore the delightful story of trigonometry from its historical beginnings—beginnings that one might argue are also the most natural starting point for young learners.

The modern emphasis on right triangles (and even the term trigonometry itself) emerged relatively late in the subject’s development and often provides little initial context for students.
Come see what familiar curriculum topics look like when they are re‑introduced in their natural historical order, allowing delight, intuition, joy, and depth of understanding to come to the fore.

About the speaker

James Tanton (PhD, Princeton 1994, mathematics) writes books, makes videos, advises on curriculum, consults with teachers, and gives demonstration classes and professional development sessions across the globe. He has taught mathematics both at the university and high-school levels and is absolutely committed to promoting effective and joyful mathematics thinking, learning, and doing at all levels of the education spectrum.

James has recently arrived to the San Francisco Bay Area and currently serves as an Associate Coordinator of Public Programs for BSE. He is also the Mathematician‑at‑Large for the Mathematical Association of America, co-founder of the Global Math Project, and Chief Mathematics Officer for SmartWithIt.

April 16: Kelly Billings-Yadav

Teachers' Co-design Trajectories in an RPP focused on Justice-Centered Science Instruction

Kelly Billings-Yadav

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

Purpose: Co-design can support transformative collaborations between teachers and researchers that democratize education research and create innovative curricula and learning technology. While much work has been done to explore the results of co-design and the impact of design on student learning, the conditions for supporting transformative partnerships need further exploration. I examine the trajectory of three teachers’ roles and engagement in co-design within a multi-year Research Practice Partnership (RPP). I discuss how specific structures and resources within the RPP supported their co-design trajectories and leadership within the partnership. 


Methodology: I employ a cross-case analysis to compare three teachers as they participated in the co-design of justice-centered science curricula. I analyzed RPP artifacts collected over three years (co-design workshop transcripts, classroom observations, and memos from informal co-design conversations) and identified how they engaged in co-design in ways that aligned with the RPP frameworks. Reflective interviews with teachers provide additional insight into their ideas about the episodes and their roles within the RPP.

Findings: Teachers had different trajectories, impacted by their backgrounds, personal goals, and interests in justice-centered science instruction. Close working relationships between teachers and researchers and flexibility within the RPP supported teachers to engage in co-design in different ways, increased curriculum customization, and positioned teachers as experts. Workshops and summer research internships provided space for teachers to take on leadership and research roles in co-design.

Originality and Implications: I highlight how specific structures and resources within co-design can support transformative collaborations between teachers and researchers that can democratize education research. These findings can inform the structure of future co-design partnerships.
About the speaker

Kelly Billings-Yadav is a PhD candidate at the UC Berkeley School of Education and a former OUSD Science Teacher. Her research focuses on co-designing learning environments with teachers that support students’ justice-centered STEM learning and examining science teachers’ practices as they implement instruction focused on social and racial justice.


While at Berkeley, Kelly supported the CalTeach and BTEP programs as a teaching assistant and university supervisor, which motivated her interest in supporting pre-service STEM teachers in enacting justice-centered instruction and integrating data science into their teaching practice. Her work is informed by constructivist and sociocultural theories of learning, including Knowledge Integration (Linn & Eylon, 2011), Justice-Centered Science Pedagogy (Morales-Doyle, 2017), and humanistic approaches to data science education (Lee et al., 2021).

Kelly is also the Educator Learning Product Manager at the Tech Interactive in San Jose. She leads the design and implementation of teacher programming and resource development focused on engineering, computer science, Data Science, and AI literacy instruction. She has founded new initiatives within the STEM learning products team, including partnerships with local preservice teacher programs and expanding the Tech’s reach to teachers in the central valley of California.See the Tech’s website for information on our educator resources, and share them with STEM educators in your networks!

April 23: Dor Abrahamson, Catalina Lomos, Sam Hilkey, Ratih Ayu Apsari, and Alik Palatnik

Heteroperception in joint action: Breakdown and reconciliation of collaborating learners' differing views of mathematical objects


Dor Abrahamson1

Dr. Catalina Lomos2

Sam Hilkey1

Ratih Ayu Apsari1

Dr. Alik Palatnik3

1Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

2LISER, Luxembourg

3The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Abstract

Heteroperception depicts a socio-cognitive situation in which a set of individuals, who are collaborating effectively in a joint endeavor involving the manipulation of common physical and semiotic resources toward a shared goal, nevertheless are perceiving these resources differently. The construct of heteroperception emerged in the course of our cross-project investigations into the relation between joint action and conceptual learning. Our paper explores the potential utility of the construct as an analytic tool to model interpersonal participation patterns that arise during collaborative mathematical activity.

We demonstrate heteroperception as it unfolds in empirical results across three mathematics-education design-based research studies of collaborative problem-solving with material resources. We focus on moments when participants' multimodal utterances pertaining to features of the shared environment, or physical operations thereupon, gave pause to their peers, who apparently had been perceiving these features differently. Drawing on phenomenological philosophy of perception and cognitive–anthropological theories of joint action, we offer microgenetic analyses of data vignettes to characterize why the materials' structural forms and quantitative–relational qualities became contested, how these emergent disagreements were negotiated, and what learning, if any, apparently resulted from reconciling perspectives.

Our findings suggest that whereas divergent idiosyncratic perceptions may abound normatively across co-operating students, these ambiguities surface and catalyze productive argumentation only when they translate into conflicting micro-operations, such as overt physical intervention that changes an object's location, orientation, or composition contrary to a peer's tacit intention or anticipation. We comment on the socio-discursive affordances of different construction media and semiotic registers—embodied, material, inscriptional—as manifesting implicit heteroperception. Finally, we revisit cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) to reflect on the cultural anomaly of discovery-based pedagogical activities, wherein actions are ahistorical and therefore initially lack common discourse.

About the speakers

Dor Abrahamson (PhD, Learning Sciences) is Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development at the Graduate School of Education, University of California Berkeley, where he directs the Embodied Design Research Laboratory (EDRL) (https://edrl.berkeley.edu). A design-based researcher of mathematics cognition, teaching, and learning, Abrahamson develops and evaluates theoretical models of diverse students’ conceptual learning by analyzing empirical data collected in evaluation studies of his innovative pedagogical design.

Dr. Catalina Lomos is an education researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER). She holds a PhD from the University of Groningen and works on school effectiveness, teacher professional learning, and collaboration. She spent a year as a Fulbright scholar at UC Berkeley’s EDRL, where she engaged with research on collaborative learning and embodied approaches to understanding how coordination and interaction support educational processes.

Sam Hilkey is a PhD student in the SESAME graduate group at UC Berkeley School of Education, where he studies elementary mathematics teachers’ co-development of content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge as they design and build material learning artifacts in constructionist learning environments. He draws on his experience as a former high school and middle school mathematics teacher as well as his experience from his current role coaching student teachers in the CalTeach credential program. 

Ratih Ayu Apsari is a PhD candidate in Learning Sciences and Human Development at UC Berkeley and a member of the EDRL. Her research focuses on culturally situated, embodied approaches to mathematics learning, particularly the design of activities and ecological interventions that bridge movement practices, such as dance, with geometry education. Her work examines how learners develop mathematical meaning through coordinated perception–action processes, with particular attention to how cultural traditions shape embodied ways of knowing.

Dr. Alik Palatnik is a faculty member at the Seymour Fox School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in mathematics education. He received his Ph.D. from the Technion (2016), where he focused on project-based learning in mathematics. His postdoctoral research at the EDRL at UC Berkeley further advanced his expertise in design-based methodologies and embodied cognition. Dr. Palatnik’s research spans student-centered pedagogies, embodied learning, and innovative teacher education practices.

April 30: Alik Palatnik

From Collaborative Construction to Professional Vision: Reframing Teacher Learning Through Multimodal, Student-Centered Perspectives

Alik Palatnik

The Seymour Fox School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Abstract

Research on teacher professional development has long emphasized teachers’ capacity to notice and interpret salient features of classroom interaction—often conceptualized through the lens of professional vision. However, prevailing approaches tend to privilege teachers’ instructional actions and verbal discourse, offering limited access to students’ embodied, perceptual, and collaborative learning processes. In this talk, I present a research program that repositions teacher learning around students’ multimodal activity, integrating collaborative construction tasks, multimodal learning analytics (MMLA), and an expanded conception of professional vision.

Drawing on three interrelated studies, I first examine collaborative mathematical construction as a learning ecology in which mathematical meaning emerges through coordinated action, perception, and social interaction. Micro-analytic evidence from embodied geometry tasks demonstrates how learners’ attention, gesture, and spatial coordination function as epistemic resources rather than ancillary features of learning. I then turn to the use of MMLA—specifically multiple-point-of-view, eye-tracking-enhanced video—not as a research instrument alone, but as a reflective resource in teacher education. I show how engaging teachers with multimodal traces of learners’ activity supports deeper pedagogical inference, enabling teachers to reason about attention, coordination, and participation in ways that conventional video-based reflection does not afford.

Building on these findings, I argue for a reconceptualization of professional vision in teacher education: one that extends beyond noticing instructional moves to include systematic attention to students’ embodied and perceptual experiences. This repositioning reframes teacher learning as developing sensitivity to how mathematical ideas are enacted, negotiated, and experienced by learners in situ. I conclude by discussing implications for the design of teacher education and professional development environments that foreground collaborative activity, multimodal evidence, and student-centered professional vision.

About the speaker

Alik Palatnik is a Senior Lecturer (tenured) in Mathematics Education at the Seymour Fox School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on the learning and teaching of mathematics, with particular emphasis on geometry learning, teachers’ mathematical problem posing, and the design of real-life and context-based mathematical tasks. Grounded in design-based and micro-analytic approaches, his work examines how mathematical ideas emerge through embodied, collaborative activity and how teachers learn to interpret students’ mathematical thinking across verbal, visual, and action-based modalities.

More recently, his research explores the use of multimodal learning analytics as reflective resources in teacher education, aimed at expanding teachers’ professional vision to include students’ perceptual and embodied perspectives. This research is supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation. His work has been published in leading mathematics education and education journals, including Educational Studies in Mathematics, Journal of the Learning Sciences, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Learning and Instruction. He has held visiting positions at the Graduate School of Education, UC Berkeley.

If you have questions about the Colloquium series, please contact sesame.colloquium@berkeley.edu.