The Gidget (Gender Inclusive Design, Game, and Educational Technology) Lab is a research group in the Department of Informatics at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, devoted to research on building, testing, and improving educational technologies to increase participation in STEM. It is directed by Michael J. Lee.
Research Areas
Our research focuses on projects exploring new technologies for people to interact and learn (especially online). Our current research addresses the following problem areas:
- Teaching STEM online at scale. How can we make current and future technologies for learning more engaging for a wide-range of learners (while showing measurable learning gains)? Can we achieve this online, without human teacher intervention?
- Increasing participation and diversity in STEM. How can we work with community partners to create sustainable STEM/computing programs for underserved and underrepresented youth? How can we ensure that these programs increase diversity and participation in STEM?
- Teaching STEM using mixed-reality How can we use the latest in virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies to engage and teach novices various STEM topics?
Publications
See our list of recent publications.
Current Students and Projects
- Yu Xu (2015-2020), Ph.D. student in Informatics, Exploring collaborative online shopping from social and relational perspectives
- Eric Nersesian (2017-present), Ph.D. student in Informatics, STEM education in mixed reality and educational games
- Ruiqi Shen (2018-present), Ph.D. student in Informatics, Improving programming learners' experience with interactive learning tools
Student Collaborators
- David Eisenberg (2019-present), Ph.D. student in Informatics, Increasing innovation and learning
- Adam Spryszynski (2018-present), Ph.D. student in Informatics, Educational games
Lab Alumni
- Joseph Chiou (2018-2020), Ph.D. student in Informatics
- Naureen Pathan (2019), master's student in Informatics
- Saketh Ram Vemuru (2016-2017), master's student in Computer Science
- Siddharth Arora (2015-2016), master's student in Information Systems
- Michael Mobilio (2019), undergraduate student in Information Technology
- Ulysee (Bo) Thompson (2017), undergraduate student in Information Technology
- Liem Ho (2016), undergraduate student in Biology
- Matthew Maravilla (2015-2016), undergraduate student in Information Technology
Organizational/Community Partners
- Newark Public Schools
- Urban League of Essex County
- NJIT Center for Pre-College Programs
- NJIT Albert Dorman Honors College
How to Get Involved
We are recruiting undergraduate and PhD students who are interested in computing education research for ongoing and future projects. Please take a look at our recent publications and contact Michael J. Lee by e-mail, indicating your research interests, projects that you have worked on (e.g., ePortfolio, app, website, Github repositories), and why you think you might be a good fit for our lab. We are specifically looking for those interested in topics of computing education or STEM education, preferably with some development experience and/or statistics. Due to the high volume of emails we receive, we will not be able to respond to emails that do not include the information listed above.