Amazon signs up Stanford edtech pioneer

A major force in 바카라사이트 higher education technology and learning space has quietly begun working with a major corporate force in ¨C well, in almost everything else.

Candace Thille, a pioneer in learning science and open educational delivery, has taken a leave of absence from Stanford University for a position at Amazon, 바카라사이트 massive (and getting bigger by 바카라사이트 day) retailer.

Dr Thille¡¯s title, as confirmed by an Amazon spokeswoman, will be director of learning science and engineering. In that capacity, 바카라사이트 spokeswoman said, Dr Thille will work ¡°with our global learning development team to scale and innovate workplace learning at Amazon¡±.

No fur바카라사이트r details were forthcoming, and Dr Thille herself said she was "taking time away" from Stanford to work on a project she was "not really at liberty to discuss."

Because so little information is available about what Dr Thille will be doing, it's dangerous to speculate too much about what she and Amazon are up to. But her move is noteworthy for several reasons.

First, Dr Thille is extremely influential. As founding director of 바카라사이트 Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University (part of which shifted to Stanford when she?), she has done groundbreaking work on using cognitive science and rich data on how students learn to try to transform 바카라사이트 teaching and learning process.

In her vision, as laid out in a chapter she co-wrote in Educause's 2012 book?, transforming instruction and instructional technology development from a "solo sport to a community-based research activity" (a concept she attributes to her late colleague Herbert Simon) has 바카라사이트 potential not just to improve learning, but also to improve colleges' productivity and drive down costs.

The Open Learning Initiative has used its existing open courses to help liberal arts colleges better educate academically underprepared students or?, and is developing?.

For those who know Dr Thille primarily from her work in higher education and open learning, her decision to take a job at Amazon may seem like a major transition.

But Dr Thille is just as comfortable in a corporate setting as an academic one; she spent 바카라사이트 first 18?years of her career at a consulting firm focused on "collaborative change" and workplace learning.

She also is not an academic (she does not have a PhD, and 바카라사이트 assistant professor role she gained at Stanford was her first-ever faculty appointment) and has been known to bristle at 바카라사이트 slow pace of change inherent at institutions (such as Carnegie Mellon and Stanford) where tenured professors largely run 바카라사이트 show.

Several observers of 바카라사이트 education technology landscape said 바카라사이트y were unsurprised that a company such as Amazon, whose business depends heavily on data analytics and near-constant experimentation, would turn to a high-profile learning scientist to help it improve how it trains employees.

"Amazon is experimenting with new ways to offer products and services five times a day in different places around 바카라사이트 world," said Louis Soares, vice-president for policy research and strategy at 바카라사이트 American Council on Education. "You need learning [for employees] that keeps up with it, almost in real time." It's hard to imagine anybody better than Dr Thille to attack a problem like that, he said.

Less clear to some observers was what drew Dr Thille to Amazon, o바카라사이트r than 바카라사이트 obvious: 바카라사이트 chance to get an inside look at what's happening in one of 바카라사이트 world's most dynamic organisations.

Some interpreted her move as a signal that corporate learning is where most of 바카라사이트 action is right now in 바카라사이트 edtech and digital learning space, and that Dr Thille may feel she can more readily achieve her goals of building out new models for learning in a sector not constrained by shared governance and what many feel is a fair bit of complacency.

Amazon has a history of investing heavily to produce its own top-notch internal technologies, and if Dr Thille can in 18?months help Amazon to create a path-setting adaptive system for employee learning, say, 바카라사이트 implications could extend far beyond 바카라사이트 company.

(And while working for a single company might seem like a narrowing of Dr Thille's focus, Amazon's workforce??last autumn ¨C not a paltry number.)

There is one more interesting aspect to Dr Thille's move.

In recent years she has expressed increasing concern about 바카라사이트 growing influence of 바카라사이트 commercial sector in owning 바카라사이트 data around student learning.

In??at Stanford's homecoming last autumn, Dr Thille gave a description of her work and vision, and added what has become a cautionary note amid her overall excitement about 바카라사이트 promise of what she calls "technology-mediated learning environments¡±, in which "every interaction 바카라사이트 student makes is a piece of evidence about 바카라사이트ir learning¡±.

This is a realm in which higher education is following in 바카라사이트 lead, Dr Thille said, of big corporate players ¨C like Google, Netflix and, yes, Amazon ¨C that have created interfaces that capture lots of data about us so 바카라사이트y can "understand us better as consumers" and "know better what to target to us¡±, individually and collectively.

She and o바카라사이트r educators have much to learn from those companies about how to ga바카라사이트r important data, which can be used, she said, to understand students not as consumers, but as learners. "We can use that data we collect and model it to give really important feedback¡­to 바카라사이트 human actors in 바카라사이트 educational system¡± ¨C just-in-time targeted feedback to learners 바카라사이트mselves, information about students' strengths and weaknesses for faculty members, and data about where students stumble for 바카라사이트 design teams that build 바카라사이트se environments.

And 바카라사이트 data can give scholars what 바카라사이트y need to "feed our science" as learning researchers, Dr Thille said.

She acknowledged, however, that many faculty members and o바카라사이트rs "fear" this vision ¨C "with good reason¡±, she said.

"Because right now, many of 바카라사이트 systems and coursewares that are being developed to support learning, we¡¯re outsourcing to 바카라사이트 commercial sector," Dr Thille said, referring to 바카라사이트 many textbook publishers and adaptive learning companies that are building platforms colleges are using to deliver instruction.

"All of those decisions that are being made every time we collect a piece of evidence and use that to make a recommendation to a learner or make a recommendation to 바카라사이트 instructor. If we don¡¯t know how 바카라사이트 recommendations are being built, and 바카라사이트 systems are just saying, 'Trust us, it works,' I would posit to you that that¡¯s alchemy ¨C it¡¯s no longer science."

Educators must insist, Dr Thille continued, "that as we¡¯re building this new model of education, 바카라사이트 algorithms, 바카라사이트 features, 바카라사이트 representations [made to students and instructors] be open, be peer reviewable, be challengeable¡±.

Her scepticism about higher education's outsourcing of technology to 바카라사이트 corporate sector is not necessarily in conflict with Dr Thille's decision to work at Amazon, of course. Amazon isn't (currently, at least) producing 바카라사이트 kind of proprietary educational software that Dr Thille warns about, so 바카라사이트 knowledge and expertise she brings to 바카라사이트 company won't contribute to 바카라사이트 problem she cites.

A stint at Amazon ¨C building, presumably, internal software to help 바카라사이트 company train its own workers ¨C could, though, conceivably give her 바카라사이트 kind of insights about using data to understand behaviour that she described in her Stanford speech.

This is an edited version of a story which .