GSE Welcomes Learning Technologies Expert Dr. Janice Gobert to Faculty
Dr. Janice Gobert has been appointed Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at Rutgers Graduate School of Education (GSE).
“We are delighted to have Janice join our faculty,” noted Dean Wanda Blanchett. “Her accomplishments in teaching, research, and service and the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of her work are an invaluable resource for the GSE and Rutgers community.”
Dr. Gobert comes to New Jersey from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, where she served as the Co-Director of the Learning Sciences and Technologies program and an Associate Professor in the Social Science and Policy Studies program.
Dr. Gobert has a long history of research in traditional and technology-based assessment of science learning and inquiry skill acquisition. She is currently the Principal Investigator on three grants totaling over $3.9 million. Dr. Gobert and her team have developed the Inquiry-Intelligent Tutoring System (Inq-ITS), which is a virtual environment for science learning and assessment.
Students use Inq-ITS to engage in authentic scientific inquiry through interactive virtual environments. While students “show what they know”, educators get real-time, actionable alerts and reports on their laptops and mobile devices, enabling them to pinpoint which students need the most help and with what skills.
Dr. Gobert and her team are currently working on a series of projects that use Inq-ITS to measure and scaffold students’ knowledge acquisition processes, science inquiry skills, and engagement in learning in real-time. These projects utilize technologies that Dr. Gobert and her team have developed including an eye-tracking technology that was recently patented and real-time data-mined algorithms (patent application pending) to assess students' science inquiry skills.
“The importance of design principles and assessment techniques in the learning sciences and in particular in digital spaces is prevalent in the work of the faculty and students at the GSE,” said Dr. Gobert. “I am looking forward to adding to this body of work in collaboration with others at the GSE.”
This semester Dr. Gobert will be teaching the 3-credit graduate seminar “Issues in the Learning Sciences.”
To learn more about Dr. Gobert, visit her faculty profile.