ABA Technologies, Inc. (ABA Tech) hires experts in learning sciences with skills required to transfer learning to our clients through eLearning methodologies. We develop solutions that create skillful performance after our work is complete. Individuals at ABA Tech need specific expertise in instructional design, content development, coaching to sustain new skills, and communicating in ways that are accessible to others.
Aspironeer Magazine is dedicating this issue to highlighting females in educational technology. We picked three women who push us to excellence, each in unique ways.
KRISTIN MYERS-KEMP, Ph.D., BCBA-D
Kristin Myers-Kemp found her niche in educational technology by combining two passions: behavior analysis and teaching. Joining ABA Tech in 2008, Kristin was the second full-time employee. There are now 110 salaried employees. In the 2000s, ABA Tech, composed of a small group of experts in the science of learning, worked together on their shared mission. As market forces combined with recognition of the quality of products produced, demand followed. Kristin says of that time, “The challenge was then and remains today, how to educate large numbers of people in diverse locations, do it well, and in a way that leads to real mastery in what they do after our training. It required us to evolve and innovate.” Indeed, ABA Tech quickly developed an eLearning presence for students around the world, using emerging technologies to occupy an online education space well before its advantages were demonstrated during the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic.
Currently Senior Vice President of Product Strategy, focusing on developing clinical knowledge and skills of future practitioners in applied behavior analysis, Kristin has a stellar record of producing graduates who pass national certification exams at a high rate. “If we do what is right for the students, our decisions become easy. If we put them first, we are, by extension, doing what is right for the program, the company, and the field. It all starts with the student.”
During the past 14 years, she has overseen graduate-level programs while teaching, mentoring, and participating in the evolution of applied behavior analysis certification at a national level. Her insights about what students need make her uniquely qualified to enhance their developmental journey. She advises others to “Never lose sight of your passion and intended effects. Use data to guide you in decision-making. It is sometimes tempting to use what is new, exciting, or what people express they want. Or to add technology just for the sake of using it. These things are often not in the consumers’ best interest, even if they think it is. We must be innovative and use technology wisely; to measure its effects and pivot as needed based on outcome data.”
Since that fateful day when ABA Tech’s founder, Dr. Jose Martinez-Diaz asked Kristin to join his company, opening the door to a career in educational technology, she has had the opportunity to learn, grow, inspire, and be inspired. She teaches, supports, and mentors staff, colleagues, and students. Harnessing the science of behavior, best practices in learning, and technology advances, Kristin is at the center of a successful program that has trained over 250,000 students worldwide.
JANET EMMENDORFER, Ph.D.
Dr. Emmendorfer, Senior Strategist and Advisor, transfers effective learning methodologies into various content areas. As a student of the psychology of learning, Janet researched basic behavioral processes such as the mechanisms of type, timing, and probability of consequences on behavior—things that accelerate or suppress learning with rats, pigeons, and undergraduates. Luckily for us, her journey led her from the laboratory to applications with people in the workplace. Throughout a career in designing learning architectures at the top of corporations and as a sought-after consultant, Janet consistently revisits the fundamental laws of learning to make sense of client requests, trends, and shiny objects of the present. “At a dot-com start-up in the late 90s, we built cutting-edge eLearning before anyone called it eLearning. Projects were slow and expensive, and products didn’t run over the internet. But what made it work was our thorough content analysis and frequent, meaningful practice as part of what was designed—keeping ourselves up to date on latest research findings about learning.”
Today developers have more efficient tools, high-speed internet, and the capacity to make good videos within the immediate reach of their iPhones. Modern eLearning looks different from the 90s. And it’s quicker and cheaper to build. But, Janet contends, what makes educational technology effective in terms of human behavior hasn’t changed. With each new trend over the years—e.g., games, microlearning, virtual reality, curated learning experiences—Janet provides the truly valuable secret sauce, scientific principles of how people learn when assessing and designing what we provide to our clients. If their systems do not ultimately change to sustain needed behavior, all the shiny new tools are built on the wrong foundation.
Janet asks her colleagues to examine these principles.
You can’t tell by looking at it whether training will work. There’s no substitute for testing with target audience members. To do this, science-based instructional designers use techniques shared with human-centered design and usability, such as think-aloud protocols.
People learn what they do (over and over). Information does not produce learning. Learning happens when learners do something, with feedback about their effects on whether they did it right. Not one time, but many times. With complex tasks, different conditions call for different responses, so it takes a lot of practice across conditions to demonstrate highly valuable patterns of learning—through a journey that extends beyond any training event.
Training by itself does not create change. Learning how to do something does not mean people will do things differently when back in their workplaces. Is the workplace set up to support new training through colleagues and processes that reinforce new skills as they are practiced and mastered? Does the learner have the information, tools, and time to apply what was learned? Do managers or peers encourage or discourage doing new things? Change management (aka performance engineering) addresses environmental factors that support behavior as a part of a plan that indicates training will lead to change.
In educational technology applications, we may fail to see how to set up new learners for success inside current cultures of work. “The way we have done things is just fine.” Janet ensures that we ask our clients to examine that often unrecognized bias to address how to transfer new skills inside old practices.
"We measure our effects by how well we bring information to the people we are seeking to serve to ensure they understand our messaging regarding the science of behavior and maximizing human outcomes"
LISA SMITH
Lisa Smith is our Vice President of Brand Marketing and Graphic Artist with 30+ years of experience managing in-house design departments, corporate brand management, global marketing strategy, inbound marketing, SEO, social media strategy, email marketing, web design, book design, book publishing, newspaper and magazine advertising, and information design. Lisa joined ABA Tech in 2018 and manages an expanding creative and marketing team of professionals focused on brand management and translating key messages to ABA Tech’s customers and clients.
Solid visual design is critical in addressing communication problems. Visual communication unlocks the learning potential of people everywhere, providing a visual path to new learning. Crafting messages in a manner that gets the organization to its educational technology goals is a large part of her mission. Lisa attributes her success to her solid foundation in graphic design, a love of continuous learning, supportive companies, and the amazing creative professionals she’s had the fortune to work beside over the years.
“It is not how much empty space there is, but rather how it is used.
It is not how much information there is,
but rather how effectively it is arranged.”
― Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
“We continue to collect and cultivate market intelligence for the benefit of our enterprise endeavors. We measure our effects by how well we bring information to the people we are seeking to serve to ensure they understand our messaging regarding the science of behavior and maximizing human outcomes. Graphic design and brand marketing play a pivotal role in this inspiring and ongoing venture.”
ABA Tech is the rich beneficiary of her pursuit of excellence through visual display and the written word.
We hope these three brief stories provide a glimpse into the quality and impact of what ABA Technologies’ team provides to our clients in the skillful applications of educational technology.
