Learning engineering: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 04:52, 22 August 2022

Revision as of 16:31, 11 September 2022

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[[Herbert A. Simon|Herbert Simon]], a [[Cognitive psychology|cognitive psychologist]] and [[economist]], first coined the term ''learning engineering'' in 1967.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Simon|first=Herbert A.|date=Winter 1967|title=The Job of a College President|url=http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=33692|website=Carnegie Mellon University University Libraries - Digital Collections}}</ref> However, associations between the two terms ''learning'' and ''engineering'' began emerging earlier, in the 1940s<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Watters|first=Audrey|date=2019-07-12|title=The History of the Future of the 'Learning Engineer'|url=http://hackeducation.com/2019/07/12/learning-engineers|access-date=2020-07-21|website=Hack Education|language=en-US}}</ref> and as early as the 1920s.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web|last1=Wilcox|first1=Karen E.|last2=Sarma|first2=Sanjay|last3=Lippel|first3=Philip|date=April 2016|title=Online Education: A Catalyst for Higher Education Reforms|url=https://oepi.mit.edu/files/2016/09/MIT-Online-Education-Policy-Initiative-April-2016.pdf|website=MIT Online Education Policy Initiative}}</ref> Simon argued that the social sciences, including the field of education, should be approached with the same kind of mathematical principles as other fields like physics and engineering.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1978|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1978/simon/biographical/|access-date=2020-07-21|website=NobelPrize.org|language=en-US}}</ref>

Simon’s ideas about learning engineering continued to reverberate at Carnegie Mellon University, but the term did not catch on until businessman Bror Saxberg began marketing it in 2014 after visiting Carnegie Mellon University and the [[Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center]], or LearnLab for short. Bror Saxberg brought his team from the for-profit education company, [[Kaplan, Inc.|Kaplan,]], to visit CMU. The team went back to Kaplan with what we now call learning engineering to enhance, optimize, test, and sell their educational products. Bror Saxberg would later co-write with [[Frederick M. Hess|Frederick Hess]], founder of the [[American Enterprise Institute]]'s [https://www.aei.org/conservative-education-reform-network/ Conservative Education Reform Network], the 2014 book using the term ''learning engineering''.

== Overview ==