Puffin Lab
Participation, Understanding, Feedback, and Interaction for Novices
What
We study how to design engaging, scalable educational tools for learners and for the educational community in the AI era, especially in the discipline of computing.
Why
No matter how AI has changed the content and landscape of learning, it is still a crucial questions to engage people to learn and make sure they are still motivated to do the things they want to do, and AI does not become another barrier that stops them.
How
Like many researchers in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) and computing education research (CER), we are either (a) trying to advance our knowledge of human in learning, or (b) creating new tools to advance our way to learn. We conduct lab studies, classroom studies and large-scale field studies. We draw on learning theories from computing education and human-centered design methods from HCI.
ProjectsLearn more →
Current research projects going on (under construction - we are still filling in the cool things we do!)
AI helpers with Personalities
Understanding how 'personal' characteristics of AI assistants affect student learning.
News
- Recruiting PhD students for Fall 2026
- Paper accepted to AIED 2025
- Puffin Lab launches at University of Maine