About

William Penuel, Distinguished Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, marking a historic milestone for the CU Boulder School of Education. His election recognizes his pioneering leadership in the learning sciences, including influential work on research‑practice partnerships, fostering and studying equitable and engaging STEM learning, and compassion‑centered approaches to schooling. Penuel’s scholarship has significantly shaped how educators and researchers collaborate to address systemic inequities and create learning environments that honor students’ identities, experiences, and well‑being. As a faculty member in the School of Education, the Institute of Cognitive Science, and a faculty fellow in the Renée Crown Wellness Institute, Penuel partners closely with educators and communities to design curriculum, assessments, and professional learning that support more just and meaningful classroom experiences. His contributions include developing an approach to education research and development called design‑based implementation research and authoring foundational books on research‑practice partnerships and compassionate, dignity-affirming schools. His work reflects a commitment to creating equitable, compassionate learning environments, and his election to the Academy affirms the impact of his contributions to education and society.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Social Science
• Psychology
• Mathematics education
• Pedagogy
• Political Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Engineering
• Public relations
• Knowledge management
• Engineering ethics
• Physics
• Engineering management
• Mathematics
• Statistics
• Chemistry

Selected publications

• BEYOND TEACHING ABOUT BIAS IN TRAINING DATA: A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK FOR CENTERING ETHICS IN THE DESIGN OF AI LITERACY CURRICULA IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

  INTED proceedings · 2026-03-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• A FRAMEWORK FOR INTEGRATING SUPPORTS FOR HUMAN-AI TEAMING INTO PROBLEM-BASED UNITS OF STUDY

  INTED proceedings · 2026-03-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Socio-educational ecologies for learning, social change, and future thinking: Expanding educational psychology's boundaries

  Acta Psychologica · 2025-06-18 · 5 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Rapid societal and technological developments have transformed how people live and learn in and across different contexts, challenging the ways in which educational psychology has traditionally conceptualized and studied learning and development. These transformations are today exacerbated by the ongoing planetary crises of sustainability, structural inequalities, and threats to democracy, further challenging educational psychology's relevance for envisioning and realizing more socially just futures. In this paper, we argue that for educational psychology to remain relevant, responsive to, and responsible with regards to the societal challenges that we face, it is crucial that the boundaries of its domain of practice be expanded beyond classical notions of traditional schooling as the primary site of and model for learning. We argue for acknowledging, building on and extending cultural-historical and ecological approaches to design and investigate socio-educational ecologies connecting multiple learning settings. We argue that such ecosystems have the potential to support learning that also advances just and sustainable social futures.

  PublisherDOI

• Supporting Coherence from Students’ Perspective in Middle School Science Classrooms Using Students’ Experience Data

  Proceedings. · 2025-06-10

  articleOpen access

  A key goal of science education is to give students a feeling for what it is to do science.This aim is supported when students perceive instruction to be coherent from their point of view.Teachers can facilitate coherence by building a classroom culture focused on collective knowledge building, supporting student agency in the direction of their own learning, and helping students to see the arc of their own learning.In this study, teachers participated in a virtual cycle of inquiry called the Student Experience Improvement Cycle (SEIC), in which they tested strategies for enhancing students' perceptions of coherence.Over the course of the experience, students' sense of coherence increased significantly.However, students' growth was not the same for students of different backgrounds.The study shows the initial potential of teacher collaborative inquiry for enhancing students' experience of science learning.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Curriculum Routines and a Community Builder AI Agent: Synergy to Mediate the Convergent Tendencies of AI

  Computer-supported collaborative learning/˜The œComputer-Supported Collaborative Learning Conference · 2025-06-10 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  AI technologies, while powerful and the subject of much innovation, have inherent bias towards convergent thinking: reproducing and mimicking patterns already seen in its training data.Learning sciences and CSCL research focus on studying tools, including AI, in authentic spaces where diversity of thought and contributions are highly valued.Focusing on an AI agent designed for supporting socio-collaborative learning in classroom spaces, we explore how these design tensions can be mediated through boundary-spanning curriculum routines.This analysis provides a roadmap from theory to practice for AI powered tools in classroom spaces that aim to leverage diversity in collaborative learning while mitigating the harms of over-attending to convergent thinking.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Using Improvement Research to Enhance the Use of Research and Repair Epistemic Harms in Science Classrooms (Poster 8)

  2025-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• From brief to boundary object: a framework for designing boundary infrastructure for learning across research and practice

  Frontiers in Education · 2025-11-27

  articleOpen access

  This paper introduces a framework aimed at designing equity-centered boundary infrastructure that supports learning at the intersection of research and practice. Drawing on sociocultural learning theory and influenced by a multi-district equity initiative, the framework outlines four interconnected design principles: contextual responsiveness, disruption of power dynamics, support for transformational learning, and attention to enactment. To demonstrate the framework’s application, we focus on the redesign of a traditional research tool, the research brief, reimagining it to foster transformational learning and support systems change. We conclude by exploring the implications of this framework for the design and study of boundary infrastructure.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 2025 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture Education for Flourishing: Building Initiatives and Partnerships for More Just and Sustainable Futures

  Educational Researcher · 2025-10-30

  article1st authorCorresponding

  In this article, I develop the idea that education can be organized for flourishing—that is, learning together how to act and engage with the world to create a more just, sustainable future for all. Flourishing is a collective process that involves cultivating care and compassion, engaging in dignity-affirming interactions, and repairing relationships among people, institutions, and subject matter. I share how three initiatives are working to build systems for flourishing: engaging youth in fugitive wellness practices, strengthening families’ meaningful connections to schools, and nurturing compassionate educators. These efforts have been cocreated and sustained within research-practice partnerships that offer models for how we can together create, repair, and sustain relationships with people, lands, and waters in just educational futures.

  PublisherDOI

• A Comparative Case Analysis of Rural Science Teachers’ Experiences with Professional Learning

  The Rural Educator · 2025-07-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  This article presents a comparative case analysis of three U.S. rural science teachers who participated in an online course focused on designing assessments aligned with the Framework for K–12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Data from surveys, designed assessments, classroom observations, and interviews were used to investigate and compare these rural teachers’ experiences before, during, and after the course. This article describes the variations among rural science teachers in their local teaching contexts, relevant prior experiences, and how they engaged in and learned from professional development. The case study teachers entered the course with differences in their knowledge and professional learning opportunities related to the NGSS as well as in the degree to which they were connected with other science educators in their community or state. However, findings showed that all these teachers drew resourcefully on social and material supports provided by the course and made large shifts in their designed assessments. In some cases, teachers’ beliefs and practices changed as well. This study highlights the unique backgrounds of each teacher and the variation in their growth trajectories, as they entered and exited the course in different places along their journey toward gaining expertise in science assessment. We argue that professional learning opportunities for rural science teachers should be designed to leverage and support the breadth of assets and needs that vary between distinct rural communities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Learning Practical Design Knowledge through Co-Designing Storyline Science Curriculum Units

  2025-09-11

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In this paper, we explore how co-design creates opportunities to learn practical design knowledge related to clarifying and balancing goals for a particular class of design contexts: developing materials that meet ambitious, externally defined disciplinary learning goals that also connect to the interests and priorities of students from minoritized groups and communities. University-based researchers, classroom teachers, and district-level science leaders co-designed high school chemistry units over a two-year period. A collaborative analysis of the tools and processes used in workshops showed that engaging in co-design and reflection supported the team in clarifying and balancing goals, and it led all participants to call for refinements to the co-design process. Interactions during co-design and reflections on them highlight tensions that arose during co-design as well as the tools and strategies for working through them. These findings point to both the possibilities and limits of co-design for clarifying and balancing multiple goals and the need to consider key constraints on co-design within the current infrastructures of schools and educational research. They also illustrate how studying co-design teams as a collective can help identify design principles and processes that can support the learning of other teams seeking to balance a focus on standards with a focus on student interests and community priorities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Partnership for Building Capacity for Improvement in State Science Education

  NSF · $1.5M · 2016–2020

• Promoting Equity in State Systems of Science Education

  NSF · $100k · 2018–2020

• Evaluation of the Global Learning to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program: A Systemic Approach

  NSF · $911k · 2002–2007

• Examining an Innovative Approach to Supporting Science Teachers Practice towards Three-Dimensional Learning Goals through Adapting Classroom Assessment Tasks

  NSF · $300k · 2017–2020

• Exploration of a Social Capital Framework for Evaluative Studies of Technology Integration

  NSF · $1.3M · 2003–2007

Frequent coauthors

• Barry Fishman

  University of California, Irvine

  68 shared

• Nichole Pinkard

  52 shared

• Katie Headrick Taylor

  Cumbria Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust

  51 shared

• Kylie Peppler

  50 shared

• A.G. Samuelson

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  49 shared

• Andrés Henríquez

  Education Development Center

  49 shared

• Leslie Rupert Herrenkohl

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  49 shared

• Jiyoung Lee

  49 shared

Education

• PhD, Psychology

  Clark University

  1996

• EdM, Human Development and Psychology

  Harvard Graduate School of Education

  1992

• BA, Psychology

  Clark University

  1991

Awards & honors

• Elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences