Pillar 01
From Static to Continuous
Move beyond one-time evaluations toward continuous improvement cycles that can keep pace with rapidly changing AI systems while respecting academic timelines.
New
Submission deadline extended to May 6, 2026
Festival of Learning 2026 · Seoul, South Korea
Impactful and Responsible AI Systems for Education.
IRAISE 2026 is a one-day workshop bringing together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and industry leaders to shape responsible, theory-driven, classroom-ready AI for learning.
About the workshop
Responsible AI that actually reaches classrooms.
IRAISE builds on two successful AAAI workshops and focuses on a central challenge in AI for education: the gap between the speed of AI innovation and the slower, evidence-based pace of educational change. The workshop emphasizes continuous evaluation, grounding in learning theory, and real-world deployment.
Three pillars
The structure of IRAISE.
The program is organized around three complementary shifts needed to build AI systems that are both impactful and responsible in education.
Pillar 02
From Tech-First to Learning Theory-Driven
Ground AI tools in learning science, cognitive science, and psychometric theory so technical sophistication is matched by pedagogical soundness.
Pillar 03
From Labs to Classrooms
Translate research into deployable products through co-design with teachers, students, policymakers, and communities.
Agenda
A full-day, discussion-rich format.
Keynote, invited talks, poster sessions, themed roundtables, and a closing panel — designed for deep engagement.
| Time | Session | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00–9:15 | Opening Remarks | Simon Woodhead and Muktha Ananda |
| 9:15–10:00 | Keynote Address | Irina Jurenka (Google) and Bibi Groot (Eedi) |
| 10:00–10:30 | Invited Talk 1 | Kevin Yancey (Duolingo) and Diego Zapata-Rivera (ETS) |
| 10:30–11:00 | Coffee Break & Poster Session I | |
| 11:00–11:30 | Invited Talk 2 | Temple Lovelace (Assessment for Good, Oluko Learning) and YJ Kim (Adelaide University) |
| 11:30–12:00 | Invited Talk 3 | Stephen Fancsali (Carnegie Learning) and Ana Ribeiro (SCALE, Stanford U) |
| 12:00–12:20 | Poster Spotlight | 10 contributed poster spotlights (90 seconds each). Selected from an open call. |
| 12:20–13:45 | Lunch Break & Poster Session II | Extended poster viewing and networking |
| 13:45–14:15 | Invited Talk 4 | Shashank Sonkar (UCF), Neil and Cristina Heffernan (ASSISTments) |
| 14:15–14:45 | Small-Group Roundtables | Topics: agentic AI safety, multimodal assessment, co-design methods, and bridging research-practice gaps |
| 14:45–15:15 | Coffee Break & Poster Session III | |
| 15:15–16:15 | Panel Discussion | Moderator: Jeremy Roschelle; panelists TBD |
| 16:15–16:30 | Closing Remarks & Next Steps | Debshila Basu Mallick |
Speakers & panelists
Leaders shaping AI in education.
Keynotes, invited talks, and a closing panel from researchers, engineers, and educators across the AI-in-education landscape.
Keynote speakers
Irina Jurenka
Research Director
Google DeepMind
Bibi Groot
Chief Impact Officer
Eedi
Invited speakers
Kevin Yancey
Director of AI Research
Duolingo
Diego Zapata-Rivera
Presidential Appointee
ETS Research Institute
Temple Lovelace
Assessment for Good
Oluko Learning
YJ Kim
Senior Lecturer
University of Adelaide
Stephen Fancsali
VP of Data Science
Carnegie Learning
Ana Ribeiro
SCALE
Stanford University
Neil Heffernan
Cofounder, ASSISTments
Professor, WPI
Cristina Heffernan
Cofounder
ASSISTments
Shashank Sonkar
Assistant Professor
University of Central Florida
More speakers coming soon.
Panel
Jeremy Roschelle
Executive Director for Learning Sciences
Digital Promise
Additional panelists to be announced.
Call for papers
Submit your work to IRAISE 2026.
We welcome submissions across the following themes, each connected to one or more workshop pillars.
From Static to Continuous
- Continuous Evaluation of Agentic AI for Learning. Design, evaluation, and governance of autonomous AI agents — ongoing monitoring, safety, transparency, and pedagogical alignment.
- Multi-Stakeholder Co-Design and Continuous Improvement. Involving educators, students, families, and communities in iterative design; continuous improvement frameworks for responsible AI products.
From Tech-First to Learning Theory-Driven
- Multimodal AI and Accessible Education. Leveraging multimodal models for inclusive content, assessment, and tutoring; addressing bias and fairness through theory-informed evaluation.
- Theory-Driven AI Development. Grounding AI design in cognitive science, learning science, and psychometric theory — knowledge tracing, item response theory, cognitive load theory.
From Lab to Classroom
- From Research to Classroom Impact. Translating AI research into deployable products — pilot programs, adoption, and evidence-based implementation.
- Shared Benchmarks and Open Datasets. Open datasets, evaluation frameworks, reproducibility, cross-institutional collaboration, and community-driven standards.
- Responsible AI Standards and Policy. Responsible AI guidelines, fairness auditing, privacy-preserving techniques, and governance at institutional, national, and international levels.
We welcome submissions that cut across the pillars.
Submission formats
- Full papers (up to 6-8 pages + references) — original research contributions
- Short papers (up to 2-4 pages + references) — demos, work-in-progress, position papers, and practitioner reports
All submissions must follow the PMLR style template.
Review & submission
All submissions undergo double-blind peer review via OpenReview. Please ensure your manuscript is fully anonymized — remove author names, affiliations, and self-identifying references.
Paper submission deadline: May 6, 2026 (23:59 AoE).
Camera-ready & proceedings
Accepted full and short papers will be invited to submit an extended version addressing reviewer remarks for publication in PMLR proceedings.
Camera-ready deadline: May 30, 2026.
Important dates
Important Dates.
All deadlines 11:59 PM Anywhere on Earth (AoE) unless noted.
| Status | Date | Milestone |
|---|---|---|
| Updated | May 6, 2026 | Paper submissions, and travel scholarship applications due (23:59 AoE) |
| Updated | May 1, 2026 | Review period begins |
| Updated | May 20, 2026 | Reviewer deadline (23:59 AoE) |
| May 30, 2026 | Camera-ready papers due (23:59 AoE) | |
| June 28, 2026 | Workshop day |
Travel scholarship
Broadening participation.
Supporting students and postdocs furthest from opportunity to attend the Festival of Learning, 2026.
About the scholarship
We are pleased to announce a travel scholarship for the IRAISE workshop at the Festival of Learning 2026 conference and attendance. This scholarship is intended to broaden participation in the conference and the workshop, with a focus on reaching underserved and underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdocs in the machine learning and AI domain.
The award will be valued commensurate to travel, accommodation, and registration fees. We look forward to your applications and hope to see you in Seoul, South Korea in June 2026.
How to apply
Application deadline: May 6, 2026 (23:59 AoE)
All personal information will be kept confidential and used solely for the purpose of evaluating scholarship applications.
Organizers
The organizing team.
Leaders from Google, OpenStax / SafeInsights, Duolingo, Carnegie Learning, Adobe Research, and Eedi Labs.
Muktha Ananda
Director of Engineering at Google, leading LearnX and contributing to AI-powered learning experiences.
Debshila Basu Mallick
Scientific Director of SafeInsights and Director of Research at OpenStax, Rice University.
Jill Burstein
Principal Assessment Scientist at Duolingo, leading validity and efficacy research for the Duolingo English Test.
April Murphy
Senior Director of Learning Engineering at Carnegie Learning, overseeing the development of UpGrade, a free and open-source platform for rigorous field tests within educational software.
Zichao Wang
Research Scientist at Adobe Research focusing on AI for education and educational data science competitions.
Simon Woodhead
Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at Eedi Labs with longstanding work in math edtech and data science in education.
Contact
Get in touch.
Questions about submissions, registration, or travel scholarships? Reach out to the organizing team.