3 Questions for Coursera’s Alexandra Urban

When I learned that  Dr. Alexandra Urban not too long ago accomplished her EdD (Health care provider of Education and learning) while doing work whole-time at Coursera, I experienced to listen to much more. Alexandra graciously answered my inquiries about her graduate research, her do the job at Coursera, and her tips for other individuals hoping to observe a very similar occupation path. 

Q1: Convey to us about your position at Coursera.

At Coursera, I am a principal studying designer on the Instructing & Studying Team, focused broadly on the written content progress system, bettering the platform, and advancing on the internet pedagogy. My track record is in Instructional Neuroscience, applying how the human mind learns to improve teaching environments. While all through the day, I work with universities to create high-good quality on the web levels, I have also just lately done a entirely on-line degree as a university student, in which I executed research to understand and improved support feminine learners in on-line STEM programs. My role at Coursera is all about infusing learning sciences investigation into our very best methods to empower associates and college students.

One particular job I’m specially very pleased of is how we have been in a position to quantify the effects of a variety of training methods. For case in point, from time to time we believe of observe quizzes as merely extra do the job, each for instructors to build and pupils to choose, but on Coursera, we can isolate the impact of distinctive training techniques and establish that the inclusion of practice actions can generate major will increase to learners’ program persistence, talent enhancement, and eventual profession outcomes. See Coursera’s Drivers of Excellent report for a lot more aspects.

Q2: You just obtained your Medical doctor of Education and learning from Johns Hopkins University.  What was your dissertation, and how does your research relate to your work at Coursera?

My dissertation consisted of two primary exploration studies. The very first was about much better comprehension why ladies are much less most likely to retain in STEM MOOCs even immediately after managing for their systematic reduce enrollment costs compared with male peers. Then, combining individuals new insights with other study literature conclusions, I designed brief, novel interventions and tested them through a randomized management trial in an hard work to shut the gender hole in STEM class completion.

The backbone of this perform was diving into investigate on what empowers ladies and learners from a lot less affluent communities, exclusively around boosting their intrinsic motivation. I’m presently working on summarizing articles of my dissertation, which I hope to have publicly available in the coming months. Preview: the success have been seriously promising, with quite a few important boosts in female retention. I’m also super fired up that we’re using what we acquired and making use of it to make our products and platform even superior.

This get the job done is particularly important now, as the COVID-19 pandemic brought disproportionately more females to the platform than former years and led to elevated feminine enrollment figures, with 37% of STEM enrollments in 2022 from women in contrast to 31% in 2019 (Girls and Competencies Report). This greater share of feminine learners enrolling in scientific and technical courses will make in-class interventions to enhance their retention even more important.

At Coursera, our perform every single working day is committed to the hundreds of thousands of learners throughout the world making an attempt to improved their lives and their families’ foreseeable future by discovering new expertise on line. Our new review, Ladies and On the net Finding out in Emerging Marketplaces, developed in partnership with IFC and the European Fee, quantifies how on-line discovering can direct to significant vocation outcomes. We want to make sure all teams of learners are succeeding in the on line courses we offer and are consistently iterating to better assistance our extremely various neighborhood on Coursera, especially individuals who are ordinarily underrepresented in larger education and learning. I see it as equally an honor and a obligation to enable our learners’ goals develop into their fact.

Q3: What suggestions do you have for recent doctoral pupils who want to find out about options outside the house of the regular faculty route and probably want to work at a understanding and technological know-how company like Coursera?

Doctoral applications offer arduous teaching on consuming and conducting investigation, which are vital capabilities for any 21st-century job. Whilst many learners think a doctorate is only for people fascinated in academia, I would argue that these crucial analysis expertise can and will assist you in a broad array of occupations.

Coming out of a doctorate, you should really have the potential to variety a properly-crafted speculation, style and design a framework to check it, get the suitable information, and examine your conclusions. No matter if you are interested in education and learning, health care, sustainability, or a thing else, any corporation in these advanced industries wants strategic thinkers who can obstacle assumptions, uncover new insights, and exam new suggestions.

As significantly as assistance goes, I would say start by discovering providers with targets that excite you. Examine what open roles or current teams they have. Exactly where do your expertise align with their career descriptions? Are there particular matters or capabilities you haven’t yet encountered? Use these roles that fascination you as a guidebook towards what courses to just take subsequent. Then, when you land an interview, you can discuss not only your relevant knowledge but also how you have upskilled particular to their career description. It demonstrates you will get genuine initiative to get the task finished. Additionally, it is usually a profit to maintain learning!