The significant role of explanation in learning and generalization is ubiquitous and well documented: explanation promotes student learning in educational settings, drives conceptual development in young children, is accorded a central role in theories of conceptual representation, and has a long history in artificial intelligence. Despite this, relatively little is known about the precise mechanisms that underlie explanation’s effects, and there is a paucity of discourse between the disciplines of cognitive science that study explanation. This interdisciplinary symposium brings together key researchers from education, development, cognitive psychology and computer science to synthesize the progress from these disciplines, forging connections between ongoing research programs to identify promising future directions.