Assistant Professor

Department: Teacher Education

Dr. Liru Hu is an Assistant Professor of STEM Education in the College of Education at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). She holds a background in Learning Sciences and Educational Technology. Dr. Hu’s research centers on understanding and supporting dialogue-based teaching and learning across diverse contexts, including whole-class teacher–student interaction, small-group collaboration, and caregiver–child communication. She aims to design technology-enhanced learning environments that promote academically productive dialogue and deeper disciplinary thinking. Her project experience includes facilitating teacher professional development in orchestrating mathematical discussions in elementary and secondary classrooms and leading a peer talk program that uses visual analytics to help students develop productive peer discourse in solving mathematical problems. Currently, Dr. Hu is investigating how teachers make moment-to-moment decisions in whole-class interactions to advance students’ science talk and reasoning. She is also exploring the use of AI-simulated classrooms to support preservice teachers’ learning and practice of dialogic strategies. Broadly, Dr. Hu’s work extends to AI literacy and computer science education for young learners, with a focus on how students develop computational thinking and conceptual and ethical understandings of AI through hands-on, dialogic, and inquiry-based learning experiences. She is also deeply interested in the learning-as-adaptive-complex-systems perspective, exploring how a complex systems lens can advance theories of learning and teaching.

Other Affiliations: None

Keywords of Expertise: Learning Sciences, Educational Technology, Teacher Education, STEM Education.