Student Opportunities

We are seeking to hire a team of 7-8 summer UROPs to work with us at the intersection of computer science and science education. At the STEP lab, your work will have an immediate impact on our research and on middle and high school students’ learning. Because of the collaborative nature of the work, we are hoping this team can be primarily on campus for the summer. And it’s fun! We have weekly time dedicated to free food and games, and there are always interesting people around to meet and learn from. However, if you are unable to be here but are very interested, please contact us and we can discuss options for remote work.

If you are interested in any of the positions below, please email a copy of your resume to Daniel (djwendel@mit.edu), along with a couple of potential times for a Zoom meeting to learn more. Please also feel free to email Daniel with any questions.

Position 1: StarLogo Nova Developer
StarLogo Nova is a web-based programming environment that combines a blocks-based programming UI, powerful simulation engine, WebGL 3D renderer, and Django backend environment, to make programming and computational modeling accessible to middle and high school students with little to no prior experience.
Example 1: https://sailctm.slnova.org/djwendel/projects/690029/edit
Example 2: https://sailctm.slnova.org/djwendel/projects/685898/edit/
We are planning to release Version 3 of StarLogo Nova this summer, and are looking for people with experience with one or more of: Django, databases, full-stack development, web development (HTML/CSS/JS), 3D graphics, programming languages/compilers, UI design and implementation, game/simulation engines, optimization/high-performance computing.

Position 2: “WIT” Headset-based Augmented/Mixed Reality Developer
“We’re In this Together” (WIT) is a Unity-based framework for making collaborative, classroom-scale, headset-based augmented reality games for middle and high school students. Imagine, for example, cities growing out of table tops, or simulated animals exploring the classroom and hiding under chairs, with the students all experiencing the same world from their own perspectives. We are looking for people with prior experience in Unity (bonus points for AR/VR experience!) to help us flesh out the system and complete two proof-of-concept games for middle school science classes: one about weather systems, and one about ecosystems.

Position 3: Instructional Designer (may be combined with Position 4 below)
We need people to help us design and research instructional supports for people using StarLogo Nova, which is being used in a large research study integrating computational modeling practices into high school science classes. This position includes two main components:

1) designing and organizing both stand-alone materials (e.g. tutorials, curriculum guides) and in-tool supports (e.g. how-to guides, tooltips) for StarLogo Nova; and

2) planning and assisting with teacher training workshops where teachers will be learning how to use StarLogo Nova and how to integrate the practices of computational modeling into their classes.

Anyone with an interest in education and an intuition for making things understandable can be a good fit for this position.

Position 4: Data Analyst (may be combined with Position 3 above)
StarLogo Nova is being used in a large research study integrating computational modeling practices into high school science classes in Washington, DC. As part of this research, we have collected many hours of classroom video, hundreds of completed worksheets and student surveys, and several teacher interviews. We need someone to help us analyze this data to help us learn how the students and teachers are responding to the new ways of teaching/learning science, and to help us identify areas where our lesson materials need to be improved. This position requires an interest in education/learning, a basic understanding of high school bio, chem, and physics, and strong organizational skills.

Note: the whole team will assist in planning and running a teacher workshop from August 5-9 where teachers from nearby schools will come to learn about the tools we’ve been developing. This event is an opportunity to present your summer’s work to real users, to see the impact it can have, and gather valuable feedback.

We hope you’ll consider joining us! Again, if you are interested or have any questions, please email Daniel (djwendel@mit.edu) to set up a time to meet.