Master's in Physics for Educators (MPED)

The culminating self-designed major project helps you merge the theory and practice of this degree program with research in your field. The project is not a thesis nor an exam, but instead an activity designed to help you in the classroom.

Composed of three parts—proposal, implementation, and assessment—your research questions are based on education, not industry or academia. We want your project to be enriching and useful and to help you teach more effectively.

Recent MPED research projects include:  

• Reorganizing and restructuring an entire teaching portfolio from classroom notes and lectures to activities
• Building a recurring project for students involving windmills
• Developing modules to a smart learning system
• Creating a comic book physics textbook

Our state-of-the-art labs provide opportunities for you to work closely with expert faculty who are passionate about physics. You’ll have access to the latest equipment and instruments, like fiber optical tweezers and atomic force microscopy, and to WPI’s physics labs, such as the IPG Photonics Laboratory, the Atomic Force Microscopy Laboratory, the Soft Matter Laboratory, and the Center for Computational Nanoscience.