Participate in a program to make topical assessments for Introductory Physics, administer them to a variety of students, and use psychometrics to provide students and teachers detailed formative/summative assessments with resolution down to the topic and learning objective level. These will be administered online (using the open source edX.org platform) in blended courses – both at MIT and in high schools with a majority of underrepresented minority students, and freely to physics teachers. The major responsibility of the research associate will be to collect, write, administer, and help our psychometrician understand the data. This job will include performing experimental/control group experiments to research which instructional resources teach which topics & learning objectives best. Our long term goal is to understand which resources and what learning habits improve student learning of both specific skills and overall expertise. This work will benefit from the RELATE group’s expertise in educational data mining, advanced psychometrics including multidimensional item response theory, and experience in designing online experiments. (see http://RELATE.mit.edu)
Requisite Knowledge and Skills:
Writing and modifying topical assessments
Knowledge of education research literature, especially in Physics Education
Familiarity with several of: HTML/XML/CSS, basic Python/R/javascript coding Statistics/data analysis skills.
Teaching experience in introductory mechanics
A Ph.D or Ed.D in physics or science education, instructional design, or cognitive science etc. is desired, but BS with teaching experience is OK.
Applicant must be comfortable working both alone and with others. All former RELATE alumni obtained positions in academia or education companies. Inquiries and applications (CV, cover letter, and list of at least three references) should be sent to relateMIT@gmail.com (please include “postdoc application” in subject line). Review of applications will begin immediately; starting date immediate to late Fall 2016.
MIT is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. For more information check http://web.mit.edu/physics/about/employment.html and http://relate.mit.edu/jobs.html .
Prof. David E. Pritchard
Dept. of Physics, MIT
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139.
