The SESAME Colloquium

A panel discussion to be kicked off by BSE Dean Michelle Young, with:

• Angela DeBarger (Program Officer),
• Linda Meyerson (Program Associate), and
• Nathan Warner (Program Officer)

of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Education Program

• Moderator: Elizabeth Gerard, Berkeley School of Education, UC Berkeley

Note that a UC Berkeley account will be necessary to view this session on Zoom.

Abstract

This session offers perspectives about philanthropy in education through the lens of the Education Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The panel discusses topics such as career pathways into philanthropy, how strategies evolve and guide grantmaking, and opportunities for the learning sciences to inform programmatic decisions at foundations.

About the speakers

Angela DeBarger is a program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She is committed to ensuring education is a public good and to democratizing knowledge and evidence. Her portfolio focuses on expanding access to open educational resources, ensuring every student has the information they need to learn and can see themselves in what they are learning.

Previously, Angela served as senior program officer for Lucas Education Research at the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she developed project-based learning programs with practitioners and researchers. From 2002 to 2014, she worked as a researcher at SRI International, studying classroom pedagogy and assessment strategies to promote student learning and engagement.

Angela has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Stanford University, a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate in educational psychology from Stanford University. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she enjoys spending time with her two boys, hiking in the hills and at the beach, and practicing improv.

Nathan Warner is an Education Program Officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. His portfolio includes partnerships across the teaching and learning and open education strategies.

Previously, Nathan was a Program Officer at Lucas Education Research, where he managed a portfolio of researcher-practitioner partnerships and grants. He also worked as a Regional Director at an education nonprofit, where he led a team of instructional coaches in supporting schools and districts with implementing student-centered learning initiatives. Nathan started his career as a secondary social studies teacher and teacher educator.

Nathan has a bachelor’s degree in Social Relations and Public Policy, a master’s degree in Historical Studies, and a doctorate in the Sociology of Education. He enjoys spending time outdoors in the California sunshine with his family.

Linda Meyerson is an Education Program Associate at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She manages partnerships and strategy development across the program's portfolios in open education and teaching and learning.

Prior to working with Hewlett, Linda served as a project manager for the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of International Studies. There, she worked with students and faculty to expand international education and career opportunities for underserved student communities. Previously, she held a research position with the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Political Science, her alma mater, where she investigated the free and fair status of elections across the globe.

Linda is a longtime resident of the San Francisco Bay Area and enjoys reading, traveling, and taking her cat for walks.

Subtle Webs: How Local Organizations Shape US Education

Jose Eos Trinidad

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

Studies of research, philanthropic, and nonprofit organizations highlight their role in influencing local district policies and politics. This talk argues that in a decentralized system like US public education, local organizations can have national consequences as they create an invisible infrastructure to spread initiatives and practices.

Using the case of high school dropout prediction data systems, the two-part talk suggests a theory of organizational change that is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but outside-in. The first part on the “local” highlights how organizations in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City leveraged various institutional strategies to engage their respective school districts. The second part on the “national” suggests larger spatial dynamics of institutional change through inter-locally networked organizations, districts, and national agencies. The talk ends with exciting theoretical and methodological advancements in the study of organizations outside schools.

About the speaker

José Eos Trinidad is an Assistant Professor at the University of California Berkeley. He is a sociologist focused on the study of organizations outside schools and the study of schools as organizations.

Shaping the Future Through Early Science Education

María Esther Paños Martínez

University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Abstract

There is a strong early connection between young children and science—yet, just a few years later, this interest in understanding how the world works often fades or even disappears. Providing high-quality science education in the early years is essential to reverse this trend. In this talk, I will share some of the science projects we are carrying out at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, in collaboration with local schools, that aim to shape future citizens equipped with the scientific literacy needed to make informed decisions and participate actively in society.

About the speaker

Esther Paños Martínez has a PhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Castilla-La Mancha and graduated in Early Childhood Education. She currently works as an Associate Professor at the School of Education, where she trains future teachers. Her teaching focuses on the didactics of the experimental sciences at the early childhood and elementary education levels. Her research explores teaching-learning methodologies, attitudes toward science, and education for sustainable development. She also leads projects in collaboration with preschool and primary schools that promote hands-on, contextualized science education, rooted in students’ everyday experiences. This work allows her to engage directly with young children, which she is truly passionate about.

Synergies between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Knowledge Integration (KI) Pedagogy for Science Learning

Marcia Linn

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

Rapid breakthroughs in AI along with advances in the learning sciences offer unprecedented opportunities for teaching and learning. Our partnership of local classroom teachers and secondary school students, AI experts and learning scientists at UC Berkeley and Educational Testing Service, and software designers at UC Berkeley began experimenting with AI tools in 2008, informed by Knowledge Integration pedagogy. This talk introduces some of the synergies that have emerged from exploring ways to merge AI and KI to score student explanations of scientific phenomena and guide design of instructional studies.

Graduate Spotlight: SESAME graduate Korah Wiley now at Digital Promise.

About the speaker

Marcia C. Linn is the Evelyn Lois Corey Professor of Instructional Science at the Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in science and technology.

She is a member of the National Academy of Education and the International Academy of Education. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science (APS), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS). She has served as President of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS), Chair of the AAAS Education Section, and on the boards of the AAAS, the Educational Testing Service Graduate Record Examination, the McDonnell Foundation Cognitive Studies in Education Practice, and the National Science Foundation Education and Human Resources Directorate. Awards include the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Award for Lifelong Distinguished Contributions to Science Education, the American Educational Research Association Willystine Goodsell Award, and the Council of Scientific Society Presidents first award for Excellence in Educational Research.

Linn earned her Ph. D. at Stanford University, where she worked with Lee Cronbach. She spent a year in Geneva working with Jean Piaget, a year in Israel as a Fulbright Professor, and a year in London at University College. She has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences three times and a Bellagio Center Writing Resident twice.

Her books include Computers, Teachers, Peers (2000), Internet Environments for Science Education (2004), Designing Coherent Science Education (2008), WISE Science (2009), and Science Teaching and Learning: Taking Advantage of Technology to Promote Knowledge Integration (2011) [Chinese Translation, 2015]. She chairs the Technology, Education—Connections (TEC) series for Teachers College Press.

Identity is a Complicated and Multifaceted Construct

Frank Worrell

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

When asked to think about the question, “Who am I?” do you reference demographic groups that you belong to, such as your gender or your ethnic group membership, or do you describe personal characteristics, such as being shy and optimistic or tall, dark, and handsome? Whether we focus on personal or sociocultural identity variables, all of these identity characteristics constitute who we are and the lens through which we look at the world. Indeed, these characteristics are the basis for the notion of intersectionality. In this presentation, Dr. Worrell will showcase how both personal and sociocultural identities are multidimensional and affect our thoughts and behaviors in educational and other settings.

About the speaker

Frank C. Worrell, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he serves as Faculty Director of the School Psychology Program, the Academic Talent Development Program, and the California College Preparatory Academy.

A certified school psychologist and a licensed psychologist, his research interests include at-risk youth, cultural identities, scale development, talent development, teaching effectiveness, time perspective, and the translation of psychological research findings into practice.

Author of over 350 scholarly works, Dr. Worrell is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Psychological Association (APA), and an elected member of the Society for the Study of School Psychology and the National Academy of Education. He was the 2022 President of the American Psychological Association.

Planting Seeds for Critical Race Analyses in Education Research

Kourtney Kawano

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

This talk engages an Indigenous storytelling method and a critical race analysis to accomplish two goals. First, as a new faculty at BSE, I plant seeds of relationality with people and place using an Indigenous framework for transformation. Specifically, I map Dr. Taupōuri Tangarō’s Kaʻao Framework onto the core areas of my research program, and I explain this program’s significance to my identity as a critical race resistance scholar in education.

Second, I plant seeds of inquiry that grew from critical race analyses of student and teacher discourses about belonging in science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM). Here, I analyze competing ideologies layered within two discourses about who and whose knowledge “belongs” in STEMM, and I invite collective sensemaking about potential implications of framing the teaching and learning of STEMM for “the way the world works” and “a world we can (re)make.”

About the speaker

Kourtney Kawano (she/her) is a wahine ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian woman) from the village community of Nānākuli on the island of Oʻahu. She is Acting Assistant Professor at the Berkeley School of Education. Her work centers place-based stories and histories to examine how culture, Indigeneity, and race/ethnicity shape teaching and learning across p–20 schooling contexts.

A critical race resistance scholar and a product of Native Hawaiian culture-based schooling, Dr. Kawano embraces the proverb “ʻAʻohe pau ka ʻike i ka hālau hoʻokahi (all knowledge is not taught in the same school)” by weaving a variety of worldviews, conceptual framings, and qualitative methodological techniques in her interdisciplinary scholarship.

Powerful, Equitable Mathematics through School-wide Lesson Study: The Journey to Teach Through Problem-solving

Catherine Lewis

Mills College at Northeastern University (Oakland, California campus)

Abstract

This presentation highlights the work of several urban elementary schools where teacher-led, school-wide lesson study supported dramatic changes in mathematics teaching and learning. We will examine the teacher-led development of school-wide lesson study and the "Teaching Through Problem-solving" approach teachers used to transform mathematics instruction.

School-wide lesson study is near-universal in Japanese schools; teacher teams conduct collaborative inquiry cycles centered on live "research lessons" observed and discussed by the whole faculty. Teaching Through Problem-solving (mondai kaiketsu gakushuu) also originated in Japan; each new mathematical concept/procedure in the curriculum is built through student-led problem-solving. Together, the approaches supported dramatic changes in teachers' routines of learning, in classroom instruction, and in SBAC mathematics scores (which grew from 15% proficiency to 56% proficiency in the first 3 years of work at one case site, supporting a very different trajectory for students from historically underserved groups within these schools versus their larger districts. We will take a close look at two lessons taught in Year 1 and Year 4 at this site to identify the instructional changes that supported learning.

Finally, we will think together about the strategies to sustain and spread work like this, which seeks changes in both teachers' learning and students' learning. The presentation draws on a book recently published by Teachers College Press, Teaching Powerful Problem-solving in Math: A Collaborative Approach Through Lesson Study, by Catherine Lewis, Akihiko Takahashi, Shelley Friedkin, Nora Houseman, and Sara Liebert.

About the speaker

Catherine Lewis, Ph.D. is a research scientist at Mills College at Northeastern University (Oakland, California campus) who has directed 10 major federal grants focused on instructional improvement. Her randomized trial of teacher-led lesson study with Japanese mathematical resources (Lewis & Perry, JRME, 2017, 48:3) was identified by a What Works Clearinghouse-criteria review as one of only two studies of mathematics professional learning (of 643 reviewed) to improve students’ mathematical proficiency.

A developmental psychologist fluent in Japanese, she has makes Japanese elementary education practices and materials available to U.S. educators, including lesson study (teacher-led, classroom-based professional learning), and Mathematics Teaching Through Problem-solving (an approach in which students build each newmathematical idea in the curriculum). Lesson study can support school-wide transformation of mathematics learning and dramatically improve mathematics achievement in urban schools.

(No colloquium talk)

Storytelling in College-Level STEM Education

Maura McDonaugh

Department of Neuroscience, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

While storytelling is often seen as the domain of the humanities, narrative plays a powerful, underexplored role in how students engage with, remember, and make meaning from scientific concepts. This talk will: (1) examine the literature on the use of narrative in STEM education, (2) present a survey under development assessing how biology instructors across California colleges and universities use and value storytelling in their teaching, and (3) preview Neuroscience through Narrative, a forthcoming undergraduate neuroscience course taught through films and books.

The talk will conclude by discussing implications for curriculum design and offering practical approaches for embedding narrative into STEM pedagogy without sacrificing rigor.

About the speaker

Maura McDonagh (they/she) is a 6th year Neuroscience PhD candidate at UC Berkeley studying the role of narrative in biology education. Their upcoming class "Neuroscience through Narrative" will be offered as a special topics course for declared Neuroscience undergraduate majors at UC Berkeley in Spring 2026.

Endangered Literacies? The Future of Handwriting and Other Paper-Based Textual Practices

Laura Sterponi

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

This talk will feature an informal presentation and conversation about Professor Sterponi’s work.

Laura Sterponi is Professor of Language Literacy and Culture at the University of California, Berkeley (Institute of Human Development; Graduate School of Education; Anthropology Department). She combines methods from Interactional Linguistics, Conversation Analysis, and Linguistic Anthropology to investigate naturally occurring uses of language, oral and written, in a range of institutional contexts and with different populations. Her research portfolio includes empirical studies of language in autism, language and literacy ideologies in educational settings, and communication in healthcare encounters.

Centering Care in Transformative Climate Change Education: A Theoretical Framework for Communal Learning Ecosystems

Amal Ibourk

Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, Florida State University 

Abstract

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) addressing climate change education face mounting challenges as they navigate political resistance, epistemic tensions, and systemic inequities. Transformative Climate Change Education (TCCE) calls for the simultaneous transformation of curricula, pedagogies, and assessment systems—changes that depend as much on relationships as on content.

This theoretical talk introduces the framework of Communal Learning Ecosystems (CLEs) as a model for designing and sustaining the relational infrastructures that enable transformative learning. Grounded in an ethics of care and informed by scholarship on Indigenous relationality, research-practice partnerships, and transformative learning, CLEs emphasize co-design, adaptive strategies, relational trust-building, and land-based positionality.

The talk will explore how caring, relationality, and positionality can function as guiding principles for fostering effective, justice-oriented climate change education—particularly within politically resistant contexts—and for reimagining how communities can co-create sustainable educational futures.

About the speaker

Dr. Amal Ibourk is an Associate Professor of Science Education at Florida State University. Originally from Morocco, she brings a rich multicultural and multilingual background—fluent in Arabic, French, Spanish, English, and Darija—that shapes her relational approach to research and teaching. Her scholarship focuses on how science and climate change education can become more connected, relational, and relevant to teachers’ and students’ lived experiences.

Dr. Ibourk was awarded the prestigious NSF CAREER grant for her project on supporting elementary teachers through community-based instructional practices that build confidence, science knowledge, and professional identity. She also serves as an Early Career Research Fellow with the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Her current theoretical work introduces the framework of Communal Learning Ecosystems—a model grounded in care, relationality, and positionality—to reimagine how research-practice partnerships can foster transformative and sustainable approaches to science and climate change education.

Bridging Research and Practice with AI and Adaptive Experimentation

Joseph Jay Williams

Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto

Abstract

1. Using AI to facilitate experimental comparisons in real-world settings, using both qualitative and quantitative data. AI helps in easily creating alternative versions of resources, which combine insights from students, teachers, and learning scientists. We identified a brief, three-minute explanation that helped students reappraise stress, leading to test score improvements of up to 4%.
2. Using AI to adapt existing resources (such as explanations and prompts for reflection) to details of people's context (such as what they are currently thinking and finding challenging).
3. Adapting guidance for students and teachers in how to interact with interfaces such as chatGPT. I additionally design interfaces to chatGPT that better meet their needs.

About the speaker

From University to Classroom: Building Democracy Education Competencies in Pre-Service Art Teachers

 Eva Greisberger

Center for Didactics of Art and Interdisciplinary Education, University of Applied Arts Vienna

Abstract

Democracy education in arts classrooms represents both an opportunity and a challenge for teacher preparation programs. As democratic values face pressure across global contexts, art education offers unique possibilities for fostering critical thinking, dialogue, and civic engagement, yet pre-service teachers often lack the pedagogical tools and confidence to implement democracy-focused curricula.

This talk presents findings from a design-based research project conducted within the teacher training program at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. The project examines how pre-service art teachers develop competencies in democracy education through a multi-phase approach: university coursework, collaborative planning, and implementation with 12-year-old students in Viennese schools.

Drawing on pre-post assessments, classroom observations, and teacher interviews, the presentation will explore both the potentials and challenges of integrating democracy education into art teacher preparation. Key findings illuminate how future teachers navigate the complexities of facilitating democratic discourse through artistic practice, the shifts in their pedagogical understanding, and the realities of translating university learning into classroom practice.

The talk will discuss implications for teacher education programs seeking to strengthen democracy education within the arts, particularly in contexts where this remains an emerging curricular priority.

About the speaker

Eva Greisberger is a Senior Lecturer at the Center for Didactics of Art and Interdisciplinary Education at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and she also teaches at the secondary level (grades 9-12). Her research focuses on democracy education, teacher training, and arts pedagogy, with particular attention to how (pre-service) teachers can be prepared to foster democratic competencies in school settings.

She is currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Institute of European Studies through an Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Fellowship, reflecting her commitment to international dialogue on democratic education and advancing democracy-building educational projects.

Her work bridges theory and practice, combining scholarly research on didactics with hands-on teaching experience in Viennese schools. Through design-based research methodologies, she explores how teacher education can effectively prepare future educators to address the democratic challenges of our time through arts education.