Learning Engineering Research Intern

Research and Learning Engineering Intern

About Us:

Edmentum is the leading provider of K-12 digital curriculum, assessments, and services to 43,000 schools in all 50 states and over 100 countries worldwide. We partner with educators to create instructional technology that is proven, easy-to-use, individualized, and aligned to state standards. Built on a 60-year history of innovation and impact, we believe that when educators succeed, students thrive, everywhere learning occurs.

At Edmentum, we are committed to building research-based curriculum and assessment solutions that empower educators and improve student outcomes across the globe. The Edmentum Research and Learning Engineering Team is central to fulfilling our commitment to our national and international educators and learners. Each member of our team must be curious, collaborative, and have a passion to conduct best-in-class research to develop and provide evidence of valid, useful educational solutions that truly meet the needs of learners and educators.

About the Role:

In our 2024 Learning Engineering internship role, a qualified candidate would contribute to the application of learning science processes on Edmentum’s online education platforms, using human-centered engineering design methods and data-informed decision making to support learners and their development. The ideal candidate for the Learning Engineering intern position has previous training in statistical modeling and experience conducting exploratory analysis on large volumes of data using cloud computing infrastructure such as Amazon Web Services (AWS). Applicants with prior experience in learning analytics or working with large scale usage data derived from Ed Tech platforms are especially encouraged to apply.

This position will entail close collaboration with colleagues across product and technology teams in Efficacy Research, Experience Design, Learning Design, Product Management, and Data Science, and strive to support Edmentum’s mission of creating successful student outcomes everywhere learning occurs.

The Learning Engineering team is embedded within the Efficacy Research team. Our goal is to use the usage data collected in the Edmentum product platforms to investigate if our products work, for which students, and under what conditions. This role will require a qualified candidate to leverage a combination of skills in data analytics and data science to analyze current data and build models to predict future outcomes for students and educators.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with supervisor to work within complex data environments to identify data that has been or can be transformed for data analysis to explore questions of product implementation and learner activity.
• Collaborate with supervisor to facilitate pipeline and workflow processes by which data can be easily accessed and manipulated to drive internal and external stakeholder decision-making.
• Collaborate with colleagues to conduct exploratory data analysis using statistical and computational (visualization, machine learning) approaches to understand use and implementation of Edmentum products.
• Present findings to research team and other stakeholders.
• Propose recommendations for improving learning outcomes based on findings from exploratory work.
• (Optional) Submit proposal of findings to a professional or academic conference.

Required Education and Experience:

• Pursuing a graduate degree in a technical field (Computer Science, Human Computing Interaction, Learning Sciences/Analytics, Data Science, or related). Second year graduate studies preferred.
• Demonstrated interest in K-12 or Higher education and related Ed Tech including but not limited to intelligent tutoring systems, cognitive tutors, massive open online courses (MOOCs), computer adaptive tests, and related resources.
• Comfortable understanding complex data flow pipelines, querying database tables using SQL, and manipulating data for analysis using PySpark or SparkR.
• Familiarity with data lake warehousing and industry standard cloud computing processes prioritized.
• At least 2 years of experience in R, Python, and SQL.
• Demonstrated course background in applied research methods, statistical models, and experimental design; familiarity with machine learning techniques and similar applications for big data.
• Self-starter with ability to work in a collaborative team environment.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• A strong interest in translating complex large-scale data to inform decision-making.
• Experience using exploratory data analysis and learning analytics /educational data mining techniques to solve business problems on big data sets (e.g., tens of millions of rows).
• Experience with cloud infrastructure such as AWS, cloud analytics platforms such as Databricks (or similar architectures involving data lakes and lake house processes), and version control (Git)

Passion for improving learner experiences, engagement, and outcomes.

This position is fully remote, will begin in spring/summer 2024 and will last 10 weeks. Start date as soon as June but flexible.

Due to frequent collaboration with team members, working hours will typically follow Central Time business hours, with some scope for flexibility as needed.

Edmentum is committed to maintaining a safe and healthy work environment for our employees, vendors, and guests. Our organization will comply with all COVID-19 vaccination requirements at a site or facility that requires all employees and contractors who will be performing services. The CDC defines fully vaccinated as being two weeks after the second dose of a two-dose COVID-19 Vaccine or two weeks after the single dose of a one-dose vaccine.

Edmentum is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)

Edmentum’s notice regarding the collection of personal information from interested candidates is available here.