Teaching and Learning Laboratory (TLL)

The Teaching and Learning Laboratory (TLL) collaborates with MIT faculty, teaching assistants, and students to promote excellence in teaching and learning throughout the Institute. Work contributes to MIT's commitment to educational innovation and its standing as a leader in science and engineering education.

The Teaching and Learning Laboratory, which began in 1997, collaborates with members of the MIT community to promote educational excellence, both inside and outside the classroom.

TLL also plays an important role in MIT-wide innovations in pedagogy, curriculum, and educational technology that both strengthen the educational experience for students and impact national and international initiatives in STEM teaching and learning.

TLL is part of the Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education.

TLL has three interrelated functions:
(1) Collaborate on the many educational innovations being developed at MIT
(2) Offer courses, seminar series, and individual workshops in college-level teaching and learning
(3) Design and implement assessment studies, as well as conduct research in learning in higher education

As the intersections of the three circles show, we realize these three areas are not mutually exclusive, but wholly reinforce and support one another.

Senior staff members in TLL engage in two kinds of research efforts:
(1) Applied research that is the core of our ongoing work of assessment and evaluation projects carried out in close collaboration with MIT faculty and program staff;
(2) Research in areas specific to our interests, where our disciplinary backgrounds include educational psychology, educational technology, psychometrics, communications, and history. We choose research areas we believe will contribute to MIT’s educational mission and advance knowledge in the field.