Welcome to EdTechResearcher, an online portfolio for Justin Reich. I'm a learning scientist interested in learning at scale, practice-based teacher education, and the future of learning in a networked world. I'm the author of Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can't Transform Education, forthcoming from Harvard University Press, and I'm the host of the TeachLab Podcast. This site is an ongoing experiment in creating a multimedia, academic C.V. to document my research, advocacy, and work with students and educators. It also archives as much of my writing as possible, including my original EdTechResearcher blog, which ran for several years at Education Week.
Fundamentally, I'm motivated by the belief that young people are tremendously capable, and we need to develop educational systems that tap their energy, creativity, drive and talent.
Personally, I'm a husband, father, gamer, cyclist, adventurer, climber, and traveler.
Bios and High-Resolution Head Shots
Short Bio:
Justin Reich is a learning scientist interested in learning at scale, practice-based teacher education, and the future of learning in a networked world. He is an Assistant Professor in the Comparative Media Studies/Writing department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the director of the MIT Teaching Systems Lab. The Teaching Systems Lab designs, implements, and researches the future of teacher learning. He is the instructor for five free, openly-licensed MOOCs about change leadership in education. He is the author of Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can't Transform Education, forthcoming from Harvard University Press. He is also the host of the TeachLab Podcast. He was previously the Richard L. Menschel HarvardX Research Fellow, where he led the initiative to study large-scale open online learning through HarvardX, and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is an alumni and faculty associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. His writings have appeared in Science, The Atlantic, Educational Researcher, the Washington Post, Inside Higher Ed, the Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. For several years, he wrote the EdTechResearcher blog at Education Week. Justin started his career teaching wilderness medicine, and later taught high school world history and history electives, and coached wrestling and outdoor activities.
Longer Bio/Introduction:
Justin Reich is a learning scientist interested in learning at scale, practice-based teacher education, and the future of learning in a networked world. His professional work is motivated by a desire to transform the architecture of education away from centralized, hierarchical models of teaching and towards distributed, networked models of learning. He studies, designs, and advocates for learning systems that shift education from something done to learners to something done with learners, from channels of dissemination to webs of sharing.
Justin Reich is a learning scientist interested in learning at scale, practice-based teacher education, and the future of learning in a networked world. He is an Assistant Professor in the Comparative Media Studies/Writing department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the director of the MIT Teaching Systems Lab. The Teaching Systems Lab designs, implements, and researches the future of teacher learning. He is the instructor for five free, openly-licensed MOOCs about change leadership in education. He is the author of Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can't Transform Education, forthcoming from Harvard University Press. He is also the host of the TeachLab Podcast. He was previously the Richard L. Menschel HarvardX Research Fellow, where he led the initiative to study large-scale open online learning through HarvardX, and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He co-founded of EdTechTeacher, a professional learning consultancy devoted to helping teachers leverage technology to create student-centered, inquiry-based learning environments. He earned his doctorate from Harvard University, where he led the Distributed Collaborative Learning Communities project, a Hewlett Foundation funded initiative to examine how social media are used in K-12 classrooms.
His writings have appeared in Science, The Atlantic, Educational Researcher, the Washington Post, Inside Higher Ed, the Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. Justin started his career teaching wilderness medicine, and later taught high school world history and history electives, and coached wrestling and outdoor activities.
Justin is a co-author of two books: Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology: A Practical Guide for Teachers by Teachers and The iPad Classroom: From Consumption to Curation and Creation. His academic work has been published in Science, Educational Researcher, the Journal of Learning Analytics, Social Education, Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, and other venues. His opinion writings have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harvard Education Letter, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Providence Journal, and other publications.For several years, he wrote the EdTechResearcher blog at Education Week.
Justin has taught in a wide variety of settings. He was a camp counselor and trip leader at Camp Chewonki, a lifeguard and CPR instructor with the American Red Cross, a search and rescue instructor with the Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group, a wilderness medicine instructor with Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities, and an international expedition leader with World Challenge Expeditions. He taught at the Shackleton school, an expedition-based school, and he taught freshman world history and electives for seniors at the Noble and Greenough School, where he also coached wrestling and co-led the outdoor activities group.
Justin served as Outstanding Educator in Residence for the Academy of Singapore Teachers, a Digital Media and Learning Summer Fellow with the MacArthur Foundation, and a member of the 2012 class of Emerging Leaders for the International Society for Technology in Education. He is a member of the Digital Learning Advisory Council for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and serves on the advisory board of the Chewonki Foundation. He was the 2018 winner of the MITx Teaching Award, and the 2019 Jan Hawkins Award for Humanistic Research in Education Technology.
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