Joe Layng

T. V. Joe Layng has 50 years of experience in the experimental and applied analysis of behavior with a particular focus on the design of teaching/learning environments. As an undergraduate, he founded the Center for Innovative Design and Programed Instruction in 1971at Western Illinois University. A few years later working with psychiatric in-patients Joe established a constructional research/treatment program, the Personal Effectiveness Group, at the Institute of Psychiatry, Northwestern University Medical Center. With Israel Goldiamond as his advisor he eventually earned a Ph.D. in Behavioral Science (biopsychology) at the University of Chicago. Joe went on in 1984 to found Enabling Technologies, a software firm that produced the first use of gamification to teach business software, as well as an array of business software, including an AI based business planning application, and graphic design products. In the 1990s, Joe was Director of Academic Support and then Dean at Malcolm X College in Chicago where he founded the award winning Personalized Curriculum Institute. In 1999, he co-founded Headsprout. At Headsprout, Joe led the scientific team that developed the technology that formed the basis of the company’s patented Early Reading and Reading Comprehension adaptive, online reading programs, for which he was the chief architect. The reading programs have helped millions of children learn to read and have been earned many awards including the software industries most prestigious acknowledgment, the CODiE Award, for best instructional solution. Most recently the Headsprout programs won the 2020 EdTech Breakthrough Award for Best Overall Early Childhood Education Solution. Joe has published over 50 articles and chapters and a programed book introducing Signal Detection Theory. He is currently a partner in Generategy, LLC. Joe is a fellow of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, and Chair, Board of Trustees, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.