The following non-faculty, postdoctoral research position is presently available within the Department of Physics and its closely associated departments, labs and centers.

Postdoctoral Fellow: Physics Education Research

Participate in newly funded program to develop diagnostic instruments to measure the degree of expertise in physics problem solving and to develop pedagogy (especially online tutorials) to encourage expertise and assess learning styles. The online environment is the Socratic tutor MasteringPhysics.com that tracks student interactions with hints, feedback, subtasks, and followup tasks. The postdoc will collaborate in analyzing data from ~250,000 students to identify, detect, and study behaviors and habits (e.g. spreading out one’s work, pausing before answering, copying homework, …) that enhance or retard learning. See http://relate.mit.edu for related work.  The postdoc will also participate in a short course introductory physics course based on modeling ideas for which we are developing a WIKI-text.

The successful candidate will have a Ph.D or Ed.D in science/physics education, educational psychology, cognitive science, or statistics, and must have experience in teaching physics and/or very strong statistics/data analysis skills. Familiarity with existing theories of learning, test design and validation, and/or analysis of large educational datasets is desirable. She/he must be comfortable working in a small group and interacting with remote collaborators. This position is a proven route to positions in academia and education companies. Inquiries and applications (CV and names of three referees) should be sent to Ms. Joanna Keseberg (j_k@mit.edu).  Position available in Spring 2009.  MIT is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer.

Prof. David E. Pritchard
Dept. of Physics
26-241
MIT
77 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02139

Additional openings at MIT are listed on the Human Resources Positions Available web site.

The Department maintains a listing of faculty and postdoctoral openings outside of Physics Headquarters in  building 4-304, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge MA 02139.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology does not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, veteran status, age, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its employment policies and practices.

Women and Minority Candidates are Strongly Encouraged to Apply

Non-Smoking Environment