Our popular Mathematics Education Research Seminar Series, with invited external speakers, is open to everyone. If you wish to subscribe to the mailing list for the seminars, visit this site and follow the instructions.
Latest seminar
Designing Dialogic Chatbots to Support Argumentation, Multimodal Reasoning, and Translanguaging in STEM Education
Prof Kok-Sing Tang | 21st October 2026, 2:30 - 3:30pm
Location: Donald McIntyre Building, Room GS5
Abstract: The growing accessibility of no-code generative AI (GenAI) tools has made customised educational chatbots increasingly easy to create. While this accessibility lowers technical barriers for educators, it also foregrounds the pedagogical challenge of designing chatbots that are guided by research-informed pedagogical principles. This seminar explores a dialogic approach to designing customised chatbots that support productive disciplinary learning rather than simply provide answers. Drawing on an ongoing research programme, it examines how dialogic principles are translated into three different STEM education chatbots, designed respectively to support argumentation, multimodal reasoning, and translanguaging. Through these examples, the seminar invites discussion about what constitutes effective and responsible GenAI pedagogy, and how pedagogical principles can and should guide the design of meaningful student learning with GenAI in science and mathematics.
Previous speakers
Some of the speakers we’ve had in recent years:
- Catherine Thevenot
- Jill Adler
- Branko Andjic
- Nicolas Balacheff
- Alan Bishop
- Margaret Brown
- Pamela Burnard
- Beth Burroughs
- Nigel Calder
- David Clarke
- Paul Cobb
- Brent Davis
- Leslie Dietiker
- Peter Dudley
- Paul Ernest
- Lianghuo Fan
- Carla Finesilver
- Colin Foster
- Susan Gerofsky
- Hala Ghousseini
- Lulu Healy
- Jeremy Hodgen
- Celia Hoyles
- Matthew Inglis
- Merrilyn Goos
- Manu Kapur
- Magdalene Lampert
- Zsolt Lavicza
- Gosia Marschall
- John Mason
- Candia Morgan
- Jane Moss
- Elena Nardi
- Terezinha Nunes
- David Pomeroy
- Despina Potari
- Luke Rolls
- Flavia H. Santos
- Alan Schoenfeld
- Karin Sørlie Street
- Jon Star
- Gabriel Stylianides