About

Dr. Kevin Oliver is a Professor of Learning, Design, and Technology in the College of Education at North Carolina State University, serving since 2005. He has held the position of Department Chair for Teacher Education and Learning Sciences for two academic years (2022-2024) before returning to faculty duties in fall 2024. His teaching encompasses undergraduate and graduate courses on culture and technology, visual design principles for effective learning, and instructional design, with past courses covering theoretical foundations of learning environments, technology program and staff development, distance learning, and informal learning in technology. Dr. Oliver has mentored numerous students, graduating 17 doctoral students as chair or co-chair and serving on 29 dissertation committees. His primary research interests focus on technical approaches to culturally-responsive teaching across disciplines and cultural heritage representation, particularly in history and social studies education. He leads projects involving digital cultural heritage, including virtual and locative tours, and has been involved in international study abroad programs training teachers in cultural representation. Additionally, his secondary research lines include innovative approaches to open and distance learning and promoting STEM learning through informal environments such as makerspaces and robotics clubs. Dr. Oliver's work has been funded by various agencies, and he has served as a UNC System Faculty Fellow and is listed on the Fulbright Specialist Roster. His educational background includes a Ph.D. in Instructional Technology from the University of Georgia, an M.Ed. in Educational Media and Instructional Design from UNC-Chapel Hill, and a B.S. in Communications-Advertising from the University of Tennessee.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Mathematics education
• Computer Science
• Mathematics
• Statistics
• Social psychology
• World Wide Web
• Linguistics
• Pedagogy
• Developmental psychology
• Applied psychology

Selected publications

• Bridging Computational Thinking, Science, and Storytelling: Reflections on an Interdisciplinary Learning Approach

  2026-02-13

  articleOpen access

  Integrating computational thinking (CT) into early K-12 education is increasingly recognized as essential for preparing students to navigate a technology-driven world. Digital storytelling, with its capacity to combine narrative expression with programming, offers a promising interdisciplinary strategy for promoting CT. This experience report presents a narrative-centered learning environment that integrates digital storytelling, block-based programming, and hands-on maker activities to foster CT and interdisciplinary learning in upper elementary classrooms. Grounded in a problem-based storyline, the environment engages students in solving real-world-inspired challenges through physical science experimentation and interactive narrative creation. We describe a multi-week classroom implementation with fourth- and fifth-grade students and analyze survey responses and programming artifacts from 41 participants to explore how CT concepts and practices, including sequencing, conditionals, and debugging, emerged in their work. While students demonstrated statistically significant gains in CT, they also encountered challenges related to narrative coherence, science alignment, and conditional logic. We reflect on what did and did not work, offering design insights for educators and designers adopting interdisciplinary, story-driven approaches to computing education.

  PublisherDOI

• Exploring the Llama 2 Large Language Model Through Critical AI Ethics

  2025-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Promoting Multidisciplinary Digital Learning: A Design-Based Approach to Creating Teacher and Student Support Materials

  2024-01-01

  article

  Digital learning environments are used frequently in K-12 classrooms. Such use can require skillful orchestration as teachers need to understand the affordances of the learning environment, sequence of activities, and when and how to intervene with students. Using a digital learning environment in a multidisciplinary classroom context makes the design of support materials for teachers and students even more essential. To design for effective teacher orchestration in the classroom, we created a comprehensive set of materials for our multidisciplinary digital learning environment. We employ the design-based intervention research framework to trace the contextual and practical iterations these materials underwent. Additionally, we provide next steps for our work and considerations for the broader community.

  PublisherDOI

• Leveraging Large Language Models for Automated Assessment of Elementary Students' Block-Based Narrative Programs

  2024-12-02

  article

  Recent years have seen increasing awareness of the need to engage young learners in computational thinking (CT). Integrating digital storytelling, where students create short narratives, and CT offers significant potential for promoting interdisciplinary learning for students; however, it is critical to provide both teachers and students with automated support. A promising approach for enabling support is to leverage advances in Large Language Models (LLMs), which have demonstrated considerable potential for assessing both programming and natural language artifacts. In this work, we investigate the capabilities of LLMs to automatically assess student-created block-based programs developed using a narrative-centered learning environment that engages upper elementary students (ages 9 to 11) in learning CT and physical science through the creation of interactive science narratives. Using the narrative programs created by 28 students, we explore the efficacy of LLMs to assess the programs across two dimensions.

  PublisherDOI

• EXAMINING INNOVATION IN THE CONTEXT OF CAMPUS MAKERSPACES AND DESIGN STUDIOS

  ICERI proceedings · 2024-11-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Shaken Baby Syndrome

  2024-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Fostering Interdisciplinary Learning for Elementary Students Through Developing Interactive Digital Stories

  Lecture notes in computer science · 2023-01-01 · 3 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Multimodal CS Education Using a Scaffolded CSCL Environment

  2023-06-29

  article

  There is a growing need for 21st-century workers to be digitally literate and to possess computational thinking and collaborative problem-solving skills. Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) focused on computational thinking can guide students toward the co-development of these skills. In this work, we present our approach to integrating virtual and physical learning modalities into InfuseCS, a CSCL environment. InfuseCS uses problem-based learning scenarios to situate upper elementary school students (ages 8 to 11) in a CSCL setting to foster their computational thinking and science knowledge construction as they collaborate to create digital narratives.

  PublisherDOI

• Integrating Storytelling and Making: A Case Study in Elementary School

  Lecture notes in computer science · 2023-01-01 · 2 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• A Case Study of External Evaluation in Support of a New Virtual School

  2023-06-27 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  In this chapter we present a case study of the evolution of a new virtual school as informed by program and project-level evaluation. Evaluation can help online learning providers improve their programs and encourage student success. In this chapter we introduce evaluation approaches and results specific to the North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS) during its startup period (2007-2009), and discuss how the evaluation findings developed by teams at North Carolina State University helped the school reconsider its approaches to course design, teaching, policy, and more.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Cathy Ringstaff

  Wested

  12 shared

• James Minogue

  North Carolina State University

  12 shared

• Bradford Mott

  12 shared

• Aleata Hubbard Cheuoua

  Wested

  12 shared

• Andy Smith

  12 shared

• Jennifer Houchins

  Wested

  12 shared

• Ruie Jane Pritchard

  9 shared

• Rasha Elsayed

  Wested

  8 shared

Labs

• Learning, Design, and Technology (LDT) in the College of Education at North Carolina State UniversityPI

Education

• Ph.D. Instructional Technology

  University of Georgia

  1999

• M.Ed. Educational Media & Instructional Design

  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

  1993

• B.S. Communications, Advertising

  University of Tennessee

  1990

Awards & honors

• Fulbright Specialist Roster (2021-25)
• UNC System Faculty Fellow (2022)
• North Carolina's Chapter of the Fulbright Association Treasu…