Small Language Models for Education

About the Workshop

Small language models (SLMs) are open-weight language models with fewer than 10 billion parameters (as we define them) that can be locally deployed or cheaply hosted. As more model providers release smaller, more efficient models, and as the research community develops better techniques for fine-tuning and deploying these models, SLMs are emerging as a promising alternative to large language models (LLMs) for educational applications.

While LLMs have demonstrated impressive natural language processing capabilities, their adoption in education is constrained by factors such as privacy concerns, high inference costs, and proprietary limitations. SLMs offer a more scalable and accessible path to integrating AI into education, given their capabilities to be efficiently fine-tuned on high-quality domain-specific data.

This full-day workshop aims to explore the potential of SLMs in education. By bringing together researchers from the AIED, EDM, and L@S communities, we hope to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and identify new research directions that leverage the unique strengths of SLMs to improve learning outcomes.

Call for Participation

We invite researchers, educators, and industry professionals from the AIED, EDM, and L@S communities (as well as sister communities such as Learning Analytics, Educational Data Science, and Human-Computer Interaction) to submit their original, unpublished work on small language models in educational settings. We are looking for submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Pedagogical frameworks and instructional design for SLM-based interventions
• Methodologies for evaluating and fine-tuning SLMs using educational data
• Scalability and infrastructure design for deploying SLMs in large-scale settings
• Privacy, equity, and accessibility considerations of SLMs vs. LLMs
• Innovative applications (e.g., knowledge tracing, question generation, or adaptive feedback)
• Comparative studies of SLMs and LLMs in educational contexts

Accepted submissions will be presented as Lightning Talks (5 minutes + Q&A) or as Posters at the workshop. Attendees will also actively participate in cross-community speed dating and collaborative synthesis sessions to draft a white paper outlining a shared research agenda for SLMs in education.

Important Dates

To allow workshop participants to take advantage of the early-bird registration deadline (May 3, 2026) for the Festival of Learning, we have implemented a two-round submission and review process. The first round will have a shorter turnaround time to allow for early acceptance notifications before the early-bird registration deadline. Interested participants, however, will have until the second round deadline to submit their papers to be considered for presentation at the workshop.

Please note that a paper not accepted in the first round cannot be resubmitted to the second round, even with substantial revisions. However, we still encourage the authors to attend the workshop and participate in the discussions and activities to draft the joint white paper.

• Submission Portal Opens: April 2, 2026
• 1st Round Submission Deadline: April 23, 2026
• 1st Round Notification of Acceptance: May 1, 2026
• 2nd Round Submission Deadline: May 15, 2026
• 2nd Round Notification of Acceptance: May 29, 2026
• Camera-Ready Deadline (Both Rounds): June 5, 2026
• Workshop Date: June 28, 2026

All deadlines are 11:59 PM Anywhere on Earth (AoE).

Submission Guidelines

We invite submissions for research papers (5-7 pages, excluding appendices and references) that describe ongoing research, recent advancements, or challenges related to SLMs in education. If accepted, a paper will be presented as either a Lightning Talk or a Poster at the workshop.

• Format: Submissions must be formatted using the standard CEUR-WS template that we adapted for this workshop. Please download a copy of this template.
• Anonymity: Reviewing will be double-blind. Submissions must be properly anonymized.
• Submission Portal: Papers can be submitted via EasyChair.

All accepted papers will be compiled into the workshop proceedings. Proceedings shall be submitted to CEUR-WS.org for online publication. Furthermore, all workshop participants will be invited to co-author a white paper outlining a shared research agenda for SLMs in education, which will be submitted to a relevant journal (e.g., IJAIED or JEDM).

Schedule of Intended Activities

The workshop consists of a "context & connection" morning phase and a "consensus & output" afternoon phase. The goal is to stimulate the interchange of ideas across communities, identify current opportunities and challenges, and synthesize a shared research agenda for SLMs in education.

Workshop Organizers

* Workshop Chair