CHI 2026 Workshop

Understanding and Engaging Critical Resistance to AI in Education

Barcelona, Spain • April 13-17, 2026

Cover image generated with Google Gemini.

Call for Participation

We invite researchers, educators, and designers to discuss, from a place of self-determination, the role of Generative AI technologies (GenAI) in education. Some advocates welcome a seemingly inevitable leap towards efficiency and personalization, but they have been met with resistance from students and educators on the ground. We frame this opposition as a design resource, an invaluable one, as we explore deliberate non-use, productive friction, or technological refusal as valid design goals. To find GenAI’s place in education, we ask these questions:

In academic settings, where should the ideal boundaries be between where GenAI products are welcome and where they are not?
What are the most relevant pedagogical considerations guiding the use of GenAI products?
What can we transfer from how we currently teach about tools and information sources, and what is distinctly different?
What metrics and methodologies are most useful for assessing the effectiveness of GenAI products in learning contexts?
How can we adjust our design processes, or develop novel ones, to ensure that the GenAI tools we design for education are relevant, meaningful, and inclusive?
How do we balance the major stakeholder voices (e.g. students, parents, teachers, administrators, industry) in institution-level decisions and policies?

Submission Guidelines

We ask participants to submit either a position paper or research paper addressing any of these motivating questions. These contribution pathways align with the goals of each of the workshop’s two, discussion-oriented sessions, and a subset of accepted papers will be selected for lightning talks. Submissions should not be anonymized, are limited to a maximum of 4 pages (excluding references) in ACM Primary Article format, and can be submitted below.

Participants are also asked to submit a short personal statement of their relevant background (up to 150 words) to help convene a diverse set of perspectives. One or two authors of each accepted submission must attend the workshop.

All submissions will be reviewed by the organizing committee. All accepted participants are expected to engage in collaborative activities during the workshop, and some participants will be invited to give lightning talks.

Submit Paper via Google Forms

Key Dates

Submission Deadline: Thursday 5 February, 2026
Notification of Acceptance: Monday 23 February, 2026
Camera-Ready Deadline: Thursday 19 March, 2026
Workshop Date: TBA 13-17 April, 2026 in Barcelona

All deadlines are Anywhere On Earth (AoE).

Organizers

Dinesh Ayyappan (he/him)

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Dinesh Ayyappan is a PhD student at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), where he is researching Human-AI interaction from the lenses of safety and fairness. Prior to this, he was a high school teacher for 10 years and holds Master’s degrees in Computer Science and in Secondary Education. He has won multiple awards for his teaching and has coached and ran workshops for adults on topics ranging from competency-based grading to building culturally inclusive environments.

Grace Li (she/they)

University of Chicago

Grace Li is a PhD student at the University of Chicago. Her research explores the impacts that AI literacy interventions have on student-AI interactions, specifically whether teaching students about responsible AI use actually translates to students utilizing these techniques when completing a task. She is also researching the drivers and barriers educators face when integrating AI literacy into their own classrooms.

Leaf Elhai (she/her)

Learnlife Urban Hub

Leaf Elhai is a literacy educator who has taught for 12 years across four countries. She currently serves as a learning guide at Learnlife, an innovative school in Barcelona where learners have the agency to explore their passions and design their own learning journey. Leaf is curious about AI as a tool for equity in the classroom but wants to ensure that AI does not replace learners’ critical thinking and creativity.

Rob Larson (he/him)

Singapore American School

Rob Larson is an educator with 17 years of international teaching experience and a Masters degree in Technology in Learning Design. Currently a research and humanities teacher at Singapore American School, he has a front-row seat to how teachers, parents, administrators, and students are thinking about and using AI every day.

Julia Chatain (she/her)

ETH Zürich and UniDistance

Julia Chatain is a senior researcher at the Professorship for Learning Sciences and Higher Education at ETH Zürich, Switzerland, and an upcoming Assistant Professor in Learning Technologies and Distance Education at UniDistance, Switzerland. Her interdisciplinary research bridges Human-Computer Interaction and Learning Sciences, focusing on the design of inclusive technological solutions to improve STEM education. Specifically, she is interested in how embodied, multi-modal, and concrete learning experiences can address both cognitive and emotional challenges faced by learners.

Davinia Hernández-Leo (she/her)

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Davinia Hernández-Leo is Full Professor in the Department of Information and Communications Technologies at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) and holds Serra Húnter / ICREA Academia fellowships. She leads the TIDE research group (Interactive and Distributed Technologies for Education) and her work centers on human-centered learning technologies, learning design, CSCL, learning analytics, and AI in Education.