About

Maya Israel, Ph.D. is an associate professor of Educational Technology and Computer Science Education in the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida. She is the Director of both CSEveryone: The Kenneth C. Griffin CS for All Education initiative and the Creative Technology Research Lab. Dr. Israel's research focuses on K-12 computer science teacher education and strategies for supporting students with disabilities and other struggling learners' meaningful engagement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) with emphases on computational thinking, computer science education, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). She is currently PI on two NSF projects focused on pedagogical approaches that support all students in successfully accessing computing instruction. Her work is interdisciplinary and involves collaboration with researchers, teachers, and other school leaders.

Research Interests

At Risk and Related Issues, Data Collection and Analysis, Inclusion, Intervention, Mentoring, Middle School / Jr. High, Mild and Moderate Disabilities, Mixed Methods, Primary / Elementary, Professional Development, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research, Theoretical Perspectives, Urban Education

Education

• Ph.D. in Special Education, 2009 University of Kansas
• M.S.Ed. in Special Education, 2004 University of Kansas
• B.A. in Elementary Education, 2001 Ottawa University

Professional Appointments

• Associate Professor, Department of Educational Technology, School of Teaching and Learning, University of Florida, 2018 - Present
• Associate Professor, Department of Special Education, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 2017 - 2018
• Affiliate Appointment, Digital Environments for Learning, Teaching, and Agency (DELTA), University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 2015 - 2018
• Assistant Professor, Department of Special Education, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 2012 - 2017

Selected Grants

Selected Publications

Books / Book Chapters

• McCray, E. D., Kamman, M. L., Israel, M., Crews, E., & Harvey, A. N. (in press). Beyond “hand in there”: A qualitative examination of how inclusive principals support beginning special education teachers. In S. Moss & R. R Justice-Emenuga (eds.) Inclusive Leadership: From Theory to Practice (v. 2). Contemporary Perspectives on Supervision and Instructional Leadership.
• Kumar, S., Dawson, K., Ritzhaupt, A.D., Israel, M., Antonenko, P., & Taberski, R. (2023). Designing research curriculum to connect theory, research, and practice in an online professional doctorate. In Benedetti, C., & Covarrubias, A. (Eds.). (2023). Teaching Critical Inquiry and Applied Research: Moving Beyond Traditional Methods. Stylus Publishing, LLC.
• Israel, M., & *Williams, J. (2022). Using assistive and instructional technologies. In J. McLuskey, L, Maheady, B. Billingsley, M. Brownell, & T. Lewis (Eds.) High Leverage Practices for Inclusive Classrooms. Second Edition. Routledge Publishing.
• Israel, M. (2021). Equity principles for including learners with disabilities in K-12 CS education. In Understanding Computing Education (Vol 2): Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Proceedings of the Raspberry Pi Foundation Research Seminars.
• Israel, M., Marino, *Yan, W., & *Samuels, H. (2022). Using technology to support effective inclusive elementary schools. In J. McLeskey, F. Spooner, B. Algozzien, & N. L. Waldron (Eds). Handbook of Effective Inclusive Elementary Schools: Research and Practice (2nd Edition). Routlage.
• Israel, M., & *Lash, T. (with contributions from Yan, W., Liu, R., & Luo, R). (2020). Universal Design for Learning in K-12 Programming. In S. Grover (Ed). Computer Science in K-12: An A to Z Handbook on Teaching Programming. (219-226). Palo Alto, CA: Edfinity.
• Israel, M. (2019). Using assistive and instructional technologies. In J. McLuskey, L, Maheady, B. Billingsley, M. Brownell, & T. Lewis (Eds.) High Leverage Practices for Inclusive Classrooms (264-278). Routledge Publishing.
• Israel, M., *Shehab, S., & *Wherfel, Q. (2018). Increasing science learning and engagement for academically diverse students through scaffolded scientific inquiry and Universal Design for Learning. In M. Koomen, S. Kahn, C. Atchinson, & T. Wild (Eds.). Towards inclusion of all learners in science teacher education (pp. 201-211). Sense Publishing.
• Marino, M. T., Israel, M., Vasquez, E. Fisher, K. M., & Gallegos, B. (2019). Teaching and learning with technology. In A.S. Canestrari, & B.A. Marlowe (Eds.) The handbook of educational foundations: International perspectives (245-260). New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell.
• National Framework Writing team including Israel, M. (2017). The role of research in the development and future of the Framework in K-12 Computer Science Framework, led by the Association of Computing Machinery, Code.org, Computer Science Teachers Association, Cyber Innovation Center, and National Math and Science Initiative.
• Writing team including Israel, M. (2017). Practices including Computational Thinking in K-12 Computer Science Framework, led by the Association of Computing Machinery, Code.org, Computer Science Teachers Association, Cyber Innovation Center, and National Math and Science Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.k12cs.org.
• Billingsley, B. B., Brownell, M., Israel, M., & Kamman, M. (2013). The Beginning Special Education Teacher's Survival Guide. Jossey-Bass.

Other Publications

• *Ma, Y., *Song, Y., *Celepkolu, M., Boyer, K. E., Wiebe, E., Lynch, C. F., & Israel, M. (2024). Automatically Detecting Confusion and Conflict During Collaborative Learning Using Linguistic, Prosodic, and Facial Cues. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction. arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.15201.
• Ke, F., *Liu, R., *Sokolikj, Z., Dahlstrom-Hakki, I., & Israel, M. (2024). Using eye-tracking in education: review of empirical research and technology. Educational Technology Research and Development, 1-36.
• *Tian, X., *Kumar, A., *Solomon, C. E., *Calder, K. D., *Celepkolu, M., *Pezzullo, L., Barrett, J., Boyer, K. E., & Israel, M. (2023). AMBY: A Development Environment for Youth to Create Conversational Agents. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 38.
• Israel, M., *Li, J., *Yan, W., *Elagha, N. A., Huggins-Manley, C. A., Luo, F., & Franklin, D. (2023, August). How are Elementary Students Demonstrating Understanding of Decomposition within Elementary Mathematics? In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research-Volume 1 (pp. 222-235).
• *Song, Y., *Tian, X., Barrett, J., Israel, M., & Boyer, E. K. (2023). Guide, Safety Net, Project Tester, and More: Investigating the Roles of Facilitators in an Artificial Intelligence Summer Camp. In Proceedings of 2023 International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2023).
• *Ma, Y., *Celepkolu, M., Boyer, K. E., Wiebe, E., Lynch, C. F., & Israel, M. (2023). How noisy is too noisy? The impact of data oise on multimodal recognition of confusion and conflict during collaborative learning. Proceedings in the 25th ACM Conference on Multimodal Interaction.
• *Liu, R., Luo, F., & Israel, M. (2023, online). Technology-integrated Computing Instruction in Early Childhood: A Systematic Literature Review. Journal of Educational Computing Education. 07356331231170383.
• *Earle-Randell, T. V., *Wiggins, J. B., *Ruiz, J. M., *Celepkolu, M., Boyer, K. E., Lynch, C. F., Israel, M., & Wiebe, E. (2023, June). Confusion, conflict, consensus: Modeling dialogue processes during collaborative learning with Hidden Markov Models. In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 615-626). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
• Strickland, C., *Ramirez-Salgado, A., *Weisberg, L., *Chandler, L., Di Domenico, J., Lehman, E. M., & Israel., M. (2023, online). Designing an equity-centered framework and crosswalk for integrated elementary computer science curriculum and instruction. Journal of Computer Science Integration, 6(1). DOI: 10.26716/jcsi.2023.4.17.46
• *Katuka, G. A., *Auguste, Y., *Song, Y., *Tian, X., *Kumar, A., *Celepkolu, M., Boyer, K. E., Barrett, J., Israel, M. & McKlin, T. (2023, March). A summer camp experience to engage middle school learners in AI through conversational app development. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (pp. 813-819). *Best Experience Report Paper Award.
• *Song, Y., *Katuka, G. A., Barrett, J., *Tian, X., *Kumar, A., McKlin, T., *Celepkolu, M., Boyer, K. E., & Israel, M. (2023, February). AI Made By Youth: A conversational AI curriculum for middle school summer camps. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence’s Thirteenth Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence (EAAI).
• *Kumar, A., *Tian, X., *Celepkolu, M., Israel, M., & Boyer, K. E. (2022, September). Early design of a conversational AI development platform for middle schoolers. In 2022 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC) (pp. 1-3). IEEE.
• *Wiggins, J. B., *Earle-Randell, T. V., *Bounajim, D., *Ma, Y., *Ruiz, J. M., *Liu, R., *Celepkolu, M., Israel, M., Wiebe, E., Lynch, C.F., & Boyer, K. E. (2022, September). Building the dream team: children's reactions to virtual agents that model collaborative talk. In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (pp. 1-8).
• Israel, M., *Kester, M., *Williams, J., & Ray, M. (2022). Equity and inclusion through UDL in K-6 computer science education: Perspectives of teachers and instructional coaches. Transactions on Computing Education, 22(3), 1/22
• *Liu, T., & Israel, M., (2022). Uncovering students’ problem-solving process in a game-based learning environment. Computers & Education. 182, 104462.
• *Luo, F., *Yan, W., *Liu, R., & Israel, M. (2022). Elementary students’ understanding of variables in computational thinking-integrated instruction: A mixed methods study. In Proceedings of the 53nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 523-529).
• Yadav, A., Israel, M., Bouck, E., *Cobo, A., & *Samuals, J. (2022). Achieving CSforAll: Preparing special education teachers to bring computing to students with disabilities. In Proceedings of the 53nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp.196-201).
• *Luo, F., Israel, M., & Gane, B. (2022). Elementary computational thinking instruction and assessment: A learning trajectory perspective. ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 22(2), 1-26.
• Israel, M., *Liu, R., *Yan, W., Sherwood, H., Martin, W., Fancseli, C., ... & Adair, A. (2022). Understanding barriers to school-wide computational thinking integration at the elementary grades: Lessons from three schools. In Computational Thinking in PreK-5: Empirical Evidence for Integration and Future Directions (pp. 64-71). Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), New York, NY.
• Strickland, C., *Rich, K. M., Eatinger, D., *Lash, T., Isaacs, A., Israel, M., & Franklin, D. (2021). Action fractions: The design and pilot of an integrated math+ CS elementary curriculum based on learning trajectories. In Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 1149-1155).
• Sherwood, H., *Yan, W., *Liu, R., Martin, W., Adair, A., Fancsali, C., ... & Israel, M. (2021). Diverse Approaches to School-wide Computational Thinking Integration at the Elementary Grades: A Cross-case Analysis. In Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 253-259).
• Gane, B., Israel, M., *Elagha, N., *Yan, W., & Pellegrino, J. (2021). Design and validation of learning-trajectory based assessments for computational thinking in upper elementary grades. Computer Science Education, 1-25.
• Ke, F., *Liu, R., *Sokolikj, Z., Dahlstrom-Hakki, I., & Israel, M. (2021). Using Eye Tracking for Research on Learning and Computational Thinking. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 216-228). Springer.
• Israel, M., *Liu, T., *Moon, J., Ke, F., & Dahlstrom-Hakki, I. (2021). Methodological considerations for understanding students’ problem-solving processes and affective trajectories during game-based learning: A data fusion approach. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 201-215). Springer.
• *Liu, R., *Luo, F., & Israel, M. (2021). What Do We Know about Assessing Computational Thinking? A New Methodological Perspective from the Literature. In Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 (pp. 269-275).
• Israel, M., *Chung, M. Y., *Wherfel, Q. M., & *Shehab, S. (2020). A descriptive analysis of academic engagement and collaboration of students with autism during elementary computer science. Computer Science Education, 30(4), 444-468.
• Israel, M., *Jeong, G., Ray, M., and *Lash, T. (2020). Teaching elementary computer science through Universal Design for Learning. Proceedings of the 51st Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 1220-1226).
• *Luo, F., Israel, M., *Liu, R., *Yan, W., Gane, B., and *Hampton, J. (2020). Understanding students’ computational thinking through cognitive interviews: A learning trajectory-based analysis. Proceedings of the 51st Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 919-925).
• Israel, M., & *Lash, T. A. (2020). From classroom lessons to learning trajectories: Mathematics + computational thinking. Interactive Learning Environments, 1-21.
• Israel, M., Ray, M. J., *Maa, W. C., *Jeong, G., *Lee, C., *Lash, T., & *Do, V. (2018). School embedded and district-wide instructional coaching in K-8 computer science: Implications for including students with disabilities. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 26(3), 471-501.
• Ray, M., Israel, M., *Lee, C., & *Do, V. (2018). A cross-case analysis of instructional strategies to support participation of K-8 students with disabilities in CS for All. Proceedings of the 49th Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (900-905). ACM.
• Israel, M., *Shehab, S., *Wherfel, Q., *Melvin, O., & *Lash, T. (2017). Describing elementary students’ interactions in K-5 puzzle-based computer science environments using the Collaborative Computing Observation Instrument (C-COI). In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (pp. 110-117). ACM.
• Israel, M., & Ray, M. (2017). Practical strategies for including students with learning and cognitive disabilities in K-8 computer science, CSTA Voice, 13(3), 6-7.
• Israel, M. *Wherfel, Q., *Shehab, S., *Ramos, E., *Metzger, A., & Reese, G. (2016). Assessing collaborative computing: Development of the Collaborative-Computing Observation Instrument (C-COI). Computer Science Education, 26(2-3), 208-233.
• Ladner, R., & Israel, M. (2016). “For all” in “computer science for all”. Communications of the ACM, 59(9), 26-28.
• *Snodgrass, M. R., Israel, M. & Reese, G. (2016). Instructional supports for students with disabilities in K-5 computing: Findings from a cross-case analysis. Computers & Education. 100, 1-17.
• Israel, M., *Wang, S., & Marino, M. T. (2015). A multilevel analysis of diverse learners playing life science video games: Interactions between gaming content, learning disability status, reading proficiency, and gender. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(2), 324-345.
• Israel, M., *Wherfel, Q., *Pearson, J., *Shehab, S., & *Tapia, T. (2015). Empowering K-12 students with disabilities to learn computational thinking and computer programming. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 48(1), 45-53.