Rate My Professor Miri Barak

Professor Miri Barak is a distinguished scholar serving as Professor of Science and Engineering Education, Dean, and Head of the Science and Learning Technologies (SLT) group at the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. She began her professional career as an R&D Engineer in food engineering and biotechnology following her B.Sc. degree, earned Cum Laude from the Technion in 1990. Transitioning to education, she obtained her M.Sc. in Chemistry Education in 1999 and Ph.D. in Chemistry Education in 2002, both from the Technion. In 2004, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. Throughout her tenure at the Technion, Prof. Barak has held significant leadership roles, including former Chair of the Institutional Review Board for Ethics in Behavioral Science Research and former Assistant to the Technion’s Senior Vice President for Research for the Promotion of Learning and Teaching. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK.

Prof. Barak’s research centers on cognitive and sociocultural aspects of online learning and the cultivation of 21st century skills, with particular emphasis on engineering education approaches for fostering innovation and science education strategies involving knowledge construction and motivation through location-based applications and gamification. As principal investigator and co-investigator, she leads national and international projects such as AugmentedWorld for location-based learning, Games of Food for game-based learning, and the development of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Her prolific scholarly output comprises more than 80 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters published in leading international journals. Notable publications include “A cultural perspective to project-based learning and the cultivation of innovative thinking” (Barak & Yuan, 2021, Thinking Skills and Creativity), “Applying a social constructivist approach to an online course in ethics of research” (Barak & Green, 2021, Science and Engineering Ethics), “The innovation level of engineering students’ team projects in hybrid and MOOC environments” (Barak & Usher, 2021, European Journal of Engineering Education), “Team diversity as a predictor of innovation in projects of online and face-to-face learners” (Usher & Barak, 2020, Computers & Education), and “Establishing the validity and reliability of a modified tool for assessing innovative thinking of engineering students” (Barak, Watted, & Haick, 2020, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education). Her contributions have advanced technology-enhanced learning and innovative pedagogical practices in science and engineering education.