Learning Engineering: New Profession or Transformational Process?

• 07/08/24

You will notice, however, that these efforts are focused on the learning sciences end of the process model I've described. I continue to be grateful for people like Piotr Mitros, an engineering contributor to the Learning Engineering Google Group, who has voiced concerns about the shifting composition of the learning engineering community, when he poses questions like, "Where are the engineers?" and "Between 2018 and 2021, how did learning engineering turn into ed-tech?" (Mitros, P., 2021).

Fundamentally, my reason for turning to ontological exploration is that the roles played by design and engineering may be as important to the success of learning engineering as is the role played by the learning sciences.

The roles played by design and engineering may be as important to the success of learning engineering as is the role played by the learning sciences.

Grush: Will learning engineering help us see what learning designs are worthy of scale?

Wagner: Learning engineering offers us a process for figuring that out! If we think of learning engineering as a process that can transform research results into learning action there will be evidence to guide that decision-making at each point in the value chain. I want to get people to think of learning engineering as a process for applying research in practice settings, rather than as a professional identity. And by that I mean that learning engineering is a bigger process than what any one person can do on their own.

I want to get people to think of learning engineering as a process for applying research in practice settings, rather than as a professional identity… Learning engineering is a bigger process than what any one person can do on their own.

Grush: And then, by focusing on the process, we won't be endlessly picking over the exact specifications of learning engineering and discussing whether or not it's a profession?

Wagner: No, we won't! We'll be too busy leveraging the outstandingly excellent science from our learning science colleagues, implementing proven design approaches from multiple, relevant schools of learning design thinking, and engineering rock-solid, reliable platforms and apps, at scale.

We can resolve the paradox between learning as a private, personal activity and learning as something that gets broadly scaled by ensuring that we leverage design as a way to catalyze and customize the transformational process — from science, to solutions, to scale — so we can all benefit from the synergies among our collective efforts.

We can resolve the paradox between learning as a private, personal activity and learning as something that gets broadly scaled by ensuring that we leverage design as a way to catalyze and customize the transformational process — from science, to solutions, to scale — so we can all benefit from the synergies among our collective efforts.

[Editor's notes: Image created by AI: Microsoft Image Creator from Designer. Note also that Ellen Wagner will join a high-profile panel at the IEEE ICICLE Learning Engineering Conference July 22-24 co-hosted by Arizona State University.]