Low participation is one of democracy’s biggest challenges. How might we design civic technologies to support community organizers to motivate people to address our city’s needs, make government policy more equitable, and train future leaders? 

The emergence of the Internet has drastically expanded access to sources of information and connected distributed networks of individuals. How does Internet-mediated collective innovation reshape histories and reimagine futures?

Introductory programming students at the university level adopt self-assessment criteria for their programming abilities that can sometimes lead to overly critical evaluations of their skills. How do we design interventions to help students adopt more realistic criteria and improve their self-efficacy?

Students’ learning in introductory computer science (CS1) courses is mediated by many factors, including their beliefs about their ability to succeed in CS. Prior work suggests these beliefs impact a student’s decision to major in CS, but less is known about the impacts to students’ day-to-day experiences. How do students’ beliefs about their ability influence their experience in CS1, including their programming process?

Participatory design, engaging meaningfully with stakeholders, and reaching collaborative solutions through collective innovation are essential to building tools that work equally well for all folks, but those design challenges often involve the balancing of conflicting needs. How can we balance conflicting stakeholder needs to design the best, most equitable, most impactful solutions? 

Students’ desire for learning “authentic” programming and need for scaffolded tools for learning programming can be in tension. What do students mean by “authentic” programming and how can we co-design programming tools for authencity and learning with students and teachers? 

Many students struggle to learn programming in CS introductory courses. One factor that significantly enhances students learning is the possession of metacognitive skills, encompassing conscious awareness and active regulation of one's thinking processes. How can we scaffold students’ awareness of their learning behaviors and metacognitive process through addressing their self-belief? 

Transitioning from an intermediate level software engineer to an expert is difficult. It’s not just about learning syntax. It’s about learning how and why techniques are applied in real-world contexts. Professional codebases are a great resource for learning this, but how can we manage a student’s process of learning and prevent them from getting overwhelmed by professional code’s complexity? 

There isn’t enough representation of female-identifying leaders working in diverse contexts within design and technology. How might a podcast center these women’s stories of curiosity, challenge, and success to inspire the next generation of designers and technologists?  

Coaching is one the of most effective ways to support novices in solving real-world, complex problems but is very challenging. How might we design technology to support coaching?