I am a third-year PhD student at URCS, working with Dr. Zhen Bai. My research interest and design passion lie in transcending learning for people through design and technology, especially creating innovative, interactive systems to help people develop complex knowledge, and ultimately realize their own life values.
In 2018, I graduated from Tsinghua University, where I studied Human Factors under Industrial Engineering and started my learning and research on Human-Computer Interaction. Previously, the METALS (Master of Educational Technology and Applied Learning Science) program at CMU offered me a window into the intersection of learning and technology. And now, I am further pursuing my Ph.D. research in innovative and accessible educational technology with my previous experience in qualitative research, user experience design, and applied learning science.
The main research questions of the study include: (1) How can we develop accessible AI learning experience for K-12 students and teachers with limited mathematical and computational knowledge? (2) How can meaningful AI learning enhance K-12 students’ practices of science, self-efficacy, and achieving standards-aligned academic performance?
Xiaofei Zhou, Jingwan Tang, Beilei Guo, Hanjia Lyu, Zhen Bai, Challenges and Design Opportunities in Data Analysis for ML-Empowered Scientific Inquiry-Insights from a Teacher Professional Development Study, The International Society of the Learning Sciences Annual Meeting, Jun 2022. (ISLS 2022) [Publication]
Tang, Jingwan, Xiaofei Zhou, Xiaoyu Wan, Michael Daley, and Zhen Bai. "ML4STEM Professional Development Program: Enriching K-12 STEM Teaching with Machine Learning." International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education (2022): 1-40. (ijAIED 2022) [Publication]
highlight Best Paper Award Nominee highlight Best Student Paper Award Nominee Xiaofei Zhou, Jingwan Tang, Michael Daley, Saad Ahmad, and Zhen Bai. “Now, I Want to Teach it for Real!”: Introducing Machine Learning as a Scientific Discovery Tool for K-12 Teachers. International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education. 2021. (AIED 2021) [Publication]
Xiaofei Zhou, Jingwan Tang, Sufian Mushtaq, Xiaoyu Wan, Zhen Bai. Empowering Teachers to Integrate Machine Learning into K-12 Scientific Discovery. International Workshop on Education In Artificial Intelligence K-12 (EduAI 2020 Workshop Paper) [Publication]
Xiaoyu Wan, Xiaofei Zhou, Zaiqiao Ye, Chase K. Mortensen, and Zhen Bai. "SmileyCluster: supporting accessible machine learning in K-12 scientific discovery." In Proceedings of the Interaction Design and Children Conference, pp. 23-35. 2020. (IDC 2020) [Publication] [Presentation]
There is a need for additional interdisciplinary human-computer interaction and education research investigating (1) how general AI literacy is currently implemented in learning experiences and (2) what additional guidelines are required to teach AI literacy in specifically K-12 learning contexts. What can we learn from existing research and what future design opportunities are there?
Lee, Irene, Helen Zhang, Kate Moore, Xiaofei Zhou, Beatriz Perret, Yihong Cheng, Ruiying Zheng, and Grace Pu. "AI Book Club: An Innovative Professional Development Model for AI Education." In Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1, pp. 202-208. 2022. (SIGCSE 2022). [Publication]
Xiaofei Zhou, Jessica Van Brummelen, and Phoebe Lin. "Designing AI Learning Experiences for K-12: Emerging Works, Future Opportunities and a Design Framework." arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.10228 (2020). [Preprint]
I am also interested in more general design for people's lifelong learning, social life and well-being. Currently, in this research section, I only have one publication from a research project I facilitated during my undergrad. I am brainstorming more ideas related to gamification, web app design, etc.
Xingchen Zhou, Pei-Luen Patrick Rau, Chi-Lan Yang, and Xiaofei Zhou. "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-Based Short-Term Abstinence Intervention for Problematic Social Media Use: Improved Well-Being and Underlying Mechanisms." Psychiatric Quarterly (2020): 1-19. [Publication]
I started sketching comics about my PhD journey. Feel free to click on them and take a look :) More pieces are on their way!
Besides design and research, I really enjoy creating artworks, and please feel free to view some of them in my art portfolio.
I am learning to play the drum set.
I am also a fan of jogging, hiking and badminton.
Here is a small world I am trying to build, to teach my friend Chinese!
location_on3206 Wegmans Hall, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627