Announcing AI-powered capabilities enabling educators to use Coursera Coach to deliver interactive, personalized instruction

By Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO

Classrooms around the world are bustling with students of varying skill levels and career goals, each striving to succeed in a rapidly changing workforce. Educators work hard to support every learner, but with crowded classrooms and limited time, it's a daunting task.

Today, at Coursera Connect, I'm excited to announce the expansion of AI-powered Coursera Coachto serve our learner and educator community in three unique ways: providing learning assistance, offering career guidance, and facilitating interactive instruction. This evolution of Coach is designed to enrich the human interactions that define education and maximize the impact of instructors in online settings. We've also expanded other advanced features on our platform, including Course Builder, which will soon include Coach for instructional design support.

Coursera Coach: Using AI to bring in-classroom teaching methods and career guidance online
Since its debut at last year's conference, Coursera Coach has transformed the way learners interact in the online classroom. Today, we're excited to share its early impact and introduce several new enhancements:

• Coach for learning assistance: Since its launch, Coach has supported over 1 million learners, leading to a9.5% higher quiz pass rate on the first attempt and 11.6% more lessons completed per hour. Learners liken the experience to one-on-one time with a personal tutor and appreciate the ability to ask any questions free of judgment.
  
• Coach for career guidance: Coach will soon help learners explore career paths and identify transferable skills, recommending tailored learning paths based on their experience and goals. This is especially useful for those seeking a career change like a "remote tech job," but are unsure which role suits them, where to start, or how to acquire the required skills. This functionality will be available to learners by year-end.
  
• Coach for interactive instruction: Instructors can now use Coach to build immersive learning activitiesthat bring in-classroom teaching methodsinto their online courses, starting with Socratic dialogue with text-based interaction. In the coming months, we'll also add other interaction types, including modalities like audio. Grounded in Coursera's best pedagogical practices and course content, instructors can tailor their activities by specifying learning objectives, teaching style, assessment criteria, and additional files for enhanced context. Google Gemini will be the first large language model (LLM) to power Coach for interactive instruction on Coursera.

World-renowned instructors, including University of Michigan's Vic Strecher, Oakland University's Barbara Oakley, Vanderbilt University's Jules White, and DeepLearning.AI's Andrew Ng, Coursera co-founder, are among early adopters using Coach to integrate more personalized, interactive teaching methods into their online courses. Starting today, learners can experience a Coursera Coach-powered Socratic dialogue in University of Michigan's Finding Purpose and Meaning in Life and Grow with Google's AI Essentials. Pilot in progress with select instructors.

Click here to watch CEO Jeff Maggioncalda's keynote at Coursera Connect 2024, with product demos and more.

Course Builder: Helping organizations scale custom training with Coach for instructional design support

Organizations such as Hult International Business School and L&T have used Course Builder, our GenAI-powered authoring tool, to create, update, and deploy custom training at scale. Compared to last year, we've seen a 2.8x increase in institutions beginning to author on Coursera, with 715+ Course Builder courses launched since March and nearly 137,000+ enrollments so far this year.

Course Builder will also include Coach for instructional design support in the new year. Coach functions as an AI-powered thought partner for the Course Builder authoring experience, helping authors refine course content, suggest course modifications, and uphold pedagogical best practices. Pilot launching in the coming months.

The Coursera Connect Conference 2024 highlights the critical role of collaboration among institutional leaders in transforming real challenges into meaningful change. Together, we are excited to use AI to better equip learners and instructors, achieve greater educational outcomes, and provide pathways to new economic opportunities.

Click here to read about the exciting new degree pathways, content, and credentials announced at Coursera Connect 2024.

* This blog contains forward-looking statements regarding upcoming content, product, or platform developments that reflect our current plans and beliefs as of the publication date. Purchasing decisions should not be made on the sole basis of forthcoming content and features. Actual developments may vary due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in our recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Market data and statistical information are provided as estimates and may not reflect actual outcomes or future plans. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or estimates except to the extent required by law.

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