WPI’s Learning Sciences & Technologies Master's and Ph.D. program gives students and their teachers in K-12 schools the tools and techniques to make STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and English teaching more effective.
Our world-renowned faculty work collaboratively with WPI students to use a scientific and social approach that blends technology, psychology, cognition, and education practices to reach K-12 students in real classrooms and have them think about subjects in a new way. Our research identifies techniques that measure and reflect individual learning styles and help us understand how students learn, given various social, emotional, cultural, and scientific influences.
The revolution we seek is global—elevating U.S. students’ competitive edge in a connected world. Getting there requires applying what we understand about learning to transform the current U.S. educational system, classroom by classroom.
LST is excited to announce two new faculty members beginning July 1, 2020. Join us in welcoming these excellent folks to campus:
I am a recent Ph.D. graduate of the psychology program at UCLA where I worked with Gerardo Ramirez and Jim Stigler. I am an NSF GRFP recipient, an Ambassador for the Center for Open Science, Catalyst for the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences, and past President of Psychology In Action. I am also a part of the Better Book research team for the Coursekata project. Before arriving at UCLA, I worked as a professional educational evaluator and worked behind the scenes on large-scale surveys for the National Center for Education Statistics.
Stacy will be Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences & Policy Studies Department along with the Learning Sciences and Technologies program. Stacy's personal website is here.
Dr. Adam Sales is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has worked as a Research Associate at University of Texas, Austin. He is also the Director of Statistics, Measurement, and Research design Techniques in Education Research (SMARTER) consulting office, College of Education, and Biostatistician, School of Nursing.
Adam will also be joining WPI as an Assistant Professor in the Mathematics Department along with the Learning Sciences and Technologies program. More about Adam here.
Programmatic courses we recommend for the 2020-21 academic year:
Additional Courses of Interest for LST Students
CS 525 SPECIAL TOPICS: Brain-Computer Interaction (Spring 2021)
Professor: Erin Solovey
CS 525 SPECIAL TOPICS: Predicting Human Decisions (Spring 2021)
Professor: Daniel Reichman
NEU 590 Analysis of Neural Data Spring 2021
Professor: Ali Yousefi
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171 NSF and other Federally funded projects share three-minute videos of their innovative work to improve STEM and CS teaching and learning. During the week of May 15th - May 22nd, we invite you to:
Stem for All website: http://stemforall2017.videohall.com/. Professors Arroyo's and Ottmar's showcased videos:
Boston 25 reported that WPI is getting an $8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to scale up ASSISTments, a middle-school math assessment tool. ASSISTments was created by Neil Heffernan, the William Smith Dean Professor of Computer Science and the director of the Learning Sciences and Technologies Program at WPI, and his wife, Cristina Heffernan.
Computer science professor Neil Heffernan’s opinion piece in the Hechinger Report takes a look at the need for new technology and evidence-based instructional practices, such as online homework tools, to address inequities in our public school system.
ASSISTments a free web-based intelligent tutoring system was developed by a team led by Neil Heffernan, director of WPI’s Learning Sciences & Technologies program. This innovative technology uses many approaches to help students learn and help teachers assess student progress. A recent four-year study showed that completing mathematics homework using ASSISTments improved learning by 75 percent over normal gains. The study, by SRI International, was conducted with 7th and 8th grade students in Maine. Watch this video or read more to learn how this technology improved learning outcomes.
Professor Erin Ottmar helped create Graspable Math, an online tool to help researchers understand how children learn about math. With that new understanding, researchers can help educators teach math in a way that will be more useful and efficient for everyone in the classroom. Students can explore their genuine curiosity, even learning to play with math equations, while gaining flexibility in their thinking about math. Watch this video to hear Professor Ottmar explain how her research improves learning.
Professor Ivon Arroyo’s well-funded, pioneering research uses technology to improve learning outcomes. Whether it’s with the NSF’s “Big Data Spokes” project or her work with the intelligent tutoring product MathSpring, Arroyo investigates the transformations that take place when education, technology, and a human angle align.
Alongside an interdisciplinary and collaborative team of WPI professors and K-12 teachers, WPI graduate students immerse themselves in real classrooms while using the latest technology and methods to gather and interpret data. With that insight, they develop and test techniques to foster increased subject interest, better learning, and effective teaching.
student-to-faculty ratio
best career placement
National Science Foundation Research awards
Faculty in LS&T merge cutting-edge technology with real human response to improve teaching and learning outcomes. Our professors investigate everything from building wearable devices so children can create and play augmented reality math games to using software to challenge how children think about math problems. The department’s well-funded research is constant and always evolving to provide excellent opportunities for students to perform hands-on, transformative scientific inquiry.
Neil Heffernan
Ivon Arroyo
Erin Ottmar
Joseph Beck
Jacob Whitehill
