On the heels of last week’s call and response by NPR ( which link-baits another scandal, our games and game-makers watch us and learn from us, through data collection! ) we have a call from NC State for a researcher who can do just that, to improve the potential for player learning in games for education.

One of the next frontiers in education at all levels, one that may take the teacher out of the loop, is the creation of softwares (games among them) that recognize, measure, and adapt to learning by the player, and that create custom learning challenges on the fly. This would create the potential for massively scaled personalization of learning.

NPR’s story reduced games and gameplay to Skinner Box applications, and made 8-year olds afraid of their play time. Adaptive Learning Environments and Games may fuel more ghost stories and cautionary fairy tales. We may bring ourselves closer to Ender’s Game:

North Carolina State University
Department of Computer Science
CSC Cluster Hire Announcement – Games

The Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University (NCSU) seeks to fill a tenure/tenure track faculty position in Adaptive Game Technologies. The Department is seeking a faculty member with a Ph.D. in Computer Science or closely related field who will establish a vigorous research and teaching program in the science of computer games, emphasizing applications relevant to the generation or analysis of game play supporting human learning across entertainment and/or serious games contexts. Applicants at all levels (assistant, associate and full professor) are encouraged to apply. The successful senior candidate is expected to be recognized as a pioneering leader in the development of new approaches to adaptive game technologies within the broad framework of the digital transformation of education. The successful junior candidate will demonstrate strong potential for such leadership.

The selected candidate will join other new faculty hired across departments as part of a cluster hiring effort focused on the Digital Transformation of Education (DTE). These hires already include Dr. Min Chi in Computer Science and Dr. Roger Azevedo in Psychology. The DTE cluster is one part of the Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program, a cluster hire program that marks the first major initiative of the University’s 2011-2020 strategic plan, The Pathway to the Future. Starting in 2012, NC State is hiring 38 faculty in 12 emerging research areas to promote interdisciplinary scholarship and the development of innovative undergraduate and graduate programs. Additional information on the DTE cluster can be found at

Successful candidates will have the following: experience conducting innovative relevant work in a university, private sector, government, or non-profit organization; an ability to work with interdisciplinary collaborative teams, including collaborations across the university, private, non-profit, government, and education sectors; and a strong capacity to teach at both undergraduate and graduate levels, including the capacity to mentor doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows. Senior candidates will demonstrate an established track record of success in funded research, publication and other measures of scholarly impact.