Dr. Saif Rayyan
Assistant Director of Academic Programs
Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab
Saif Rayyan is Assistant Director of Academic Programs at the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL). Saif was born in Amman, Jordan. He holds a BSc in electrical engineering from the University of Jordan and a PhD in Physics from Virginia Tech. He first joined MIT in 2009 as a postdoctoral associate in physics education research, with a focus on implementing and researching pedagogical innovations using digital tools and platforms. Following his postdoctoral work, Saif transitioned into the role of a Digital Learning Scientist in the physics department and MIT Open Learning. Saif was among the first at MIT to lead digital learning initiatives for creating Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), leveraging their content and technology to enable blended learning solutions and supporting scaling up of digital learning experiments across MIT.
Saif held positions of lecturer in the physics department and the Concourse freshman learning community. He was a member of the instructional team running the TEAL (Technology Enabled Active Learning) classroom, where he helped implement a blended learning component using the MITx platform to accompany the active learning environment. Over the past decade, Saif has published several papers on digital learning pedagogy and assessment, presented at international conferences, and run workshops related to active, blended, and digital learning. In recognition of his contributions to improving both online and on-campus education at MIT, Saif was awarded the MIT Physics Department Buechner Faculty Teaching prize in 2015. Saif was also the co-recipient of the inaugural MITx Prize for Teaching and Learning with MOOCs for his work on the 8.01x series on Classical Mechanics.