Jessica J. Sandland

Biography

Jessica Sandland leads online learning initiatives in DMSE, developing massive open online courses (MOOCs), collaborating with faculty, researching best practices in online learning, and designing blended learning experiences for the MIT community. She has coordinated the development of a wide variety of DMSE’s online courses, including 3.086x (Innovation and Commercialization), 3.032x (Mechanical Behavior of Materials), 3.024x (Electronic, Optical, and Magnetic Properties of Materials), 3.15x (Electrical, Optical and Magnetic Materials and Devices), and 3.054x (Cellular Solids). Sandland co-leads the Materials Initiative for Comprehensive Research Opportunity, or MICRO, DMSE’s online research internship, and she piloted MIT’s first xMinor offering on edX—Materials for Electronic, Optical, and Magnetic Devices. She also serves as a senior member of Open Learning’s Digital Learning Laboratory.
 
Sandland holds a PhD from DMSE in electronic materials. Before coming to DMSE in her current role, she worked as a systems analyst at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and as adjunct mathematics faculty at Lesley University. Her research interests include the utility of peer review in open online courses, the influence of immediate homework feedback in MOOCs, and the use of humor in MOOCs. Sandland received the 2019 MITx Prize for Teaching and Learning in MOOCs and was a finalist for the 2019 edX prize.