Abstract
In this presentation, I position Generative AI technologies as platforms for materially externalizing human thinking, serving as engines that vitalize learning environments. I also address the often-overlooked potential harms these immense powers pose to aspects of our lives from cognition to social structures and environment. Drawing on Installation Theory, I argue for the need to understand how socially-constructed GenAI systems produce effects, enabling individual and collective behavior modification by intervening through reframing three layered installation components singly or in combination: redesigning material contexts, educating participants, modifying institutional and regulatory systems. To illustrate, I will articulate the three layers specific GenAI installations embody. I will then envision human-centered and equity-focused maneuvers for re-designing installations to better cater to the interests of the learners whose needs should be served than the industry providing these ‘educational services’ intends to enable. Following this, I will discuss two empirical studies that motivated my proposal to employ Installation Theory as a broader design framework for navigating the challenges of applying GenAI in educational contexts. The first study has focused on educators, and the second on students interacting with generative AI technologies. Together, these studies provide critical insights into refashioning installation components.

Bio
Raquel Coelho is an Assistant Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Learning Sciences in the Department of Informatics and Networked Systems at the School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh. She also serves as jointly appointed research scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center. She holds a PhD in learning sciences and technology design combined with education data science from Stanford University. She previously worked as a researcher at the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab, Columbia University, the Centre for the Science of Learning and Technology at the University of Bergen, Norway, and University College London, UK. Her research focuses on applications and theorizing of emerging technologies in learning, within human and equity-centered frameworks.