Graduate and Undergraduate Students

H-STAR faculty are regularly involved in teaching courses and mentoring graduate students in the learning sciences and technologies programs of the Stanford University School of Education, and their research preparation is commonly advanced through apprenticeship learning in research and development projects of H-STAR programs and grants.

 

Learning Sciences and Technology Design (Ph.D.)

Launched in 2002, the LSTD doctoral program is dedicated to the systematic study and design of psychological, social, and technological processes that support learning in diverse contexts and across the lifespan.

Students in the Learning Sciences and Technology Design Ph.D. program complete foundational research on learning, and they design innovative learning technologies. Graduates of the program will take leadership positions as faculty, research scientists in universities and companies, designers and evaluators of formal and informal learning environments, and in learning technology policy-making.

 

Learning Design and Technology (MA)

The LDT masters program, launched in 1997, was established in response to a need for more educationally valuable interactive learning materials and environments. Our vision has been to prepare entry-level designers who would bring powerful contemporary ideas about learning to the design of technology-based products, settings, and social arrangements for learning.

LDT graduates are prepared to work in teams with content specialists, artists, programmers, and managers to design effective technology- based products and environments for various learning settings, including schools, museums and other community education agencies, educational developers, and agencies that design continuing professional education.

The LDT program is intended for persons who aim to develop new and better ways to use information technology for learning. It is a one year program of graduate study at Stanford University leading to the degree of Master of Arts in Education. It consists of four consecutive academic quarters of study beginning in autumn, and totaling 45 units. It includes a project-oriented, year-long internship seminar, required and elective courses in education, computer science, and other departments, plus an internship, a major project and a portfolio.

 

Human-Computer Interaction (MS)

Stanford’s world famous Computer Science Department offers masters degree programs in a number of areas of specialization. One of these, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is within the academic area spanned by H-STAR and is taught by faculty active in H-STAR. Typical issues addressed by HCI are: ‘How do you design for users?’ and ‘Is a keyboard and mouse the best we can do?’

HCI spans interfaces from large wall-size computing down to handheld devices and invisible “ubiquitous computers”. The HCI masters program teaches user-centered design thinking and methods for user studies. HCI research applies to areas like collaborative work, information visualization, and “tangible computing”.

 

Undergraduate Education

As an interdisciplinary research center, H-STAR is not directly involved in undergraduate education. Intellectually, however, the interests of H-STAR are totally reflected in Stanford’s Symbolic Systems Program, an interdisciplinary degree program administered in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

The declared goal of the Symbolic Systems Program (SSP) is to provide students with the vocabulary, theoretical background, and technical skills needed to understand and participate in contemporary interdisciplinary research about language, information, and intelligence — both human and machine — and to follow rewarding careers in the technology and information sciences fields.

The SSP curriculum combines traditional humanistic investigative approaches with contemporary developments in the science and technology of computation.

The SSP has consistently attracted some of the brightest students at Stanford. Typically over 30 students graduate from the program each year, and many of them go on to pursue successful careers in technology.