Why We Need Learning Engineers

Bror Saxberg article in The Chronicle of Higher Education advocating for the role of learning engineers to drive innovation in school.

“Recently I wandered around the South by Southwest ed-tech conference, listening to excited chatter about how digital technology would revolutionize learning. I think valuable change is coming, but I was struck by the lack of discussion about what I see as a key problem: Almost no one who is involved in creating learning materials or large-scale educational experiences relies on the evidence from learning science.

We are missing a job category: Where are our talented, creative, user-­centric “learning engineers” — professionals who understand the research about learning, test it, and apply it to help more students learn more effectively?

Jobs are becoming more and more cognitively complex, while simpler work is disappearing. (Even that old standby, cab driving, may one day be at risk from driverless cars from Google!) Our learning environments need to do a better job of helping more people of all ages master the complex skills now needed in many occupations.”