JP

Julia Phelan

On the record
Share profile 
Link:
Bio
Edit

Julia Phelan has a Ph.D in Education from UCLA. She worked for over 20 years as a research scientist at the UCLA Center for Research, Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. In 2017 she co-founded To Eleven, an education consulting company focused on bringing all the good ideas about the science of teaching and learning into the mainstream—be that in educational contexts, or other environments in which learning is not always thought of as a science, or thought about much at all.

Julia is an expert in applications of learning science in the workplace, onboarding, assessment, adaptive learning, student success strategies, and developing effective educational experiences (in-person, hybrid, or online).
Her passion is helping organizations and individuals understand and apply learning science principles and practices to make their own learning more effective and efficient.

Because learning is happening everywhere and it's important to get it right. Because it's hard, and also worthwhile!.

  • Unlocking Untapped Talent: Inclusive Hiring Strategies
    Julia emphasizes skills-based recruitment to access talent without four-year degrees, including veterans and military spouses. Her Udemy Business course highlights alternative routes like apprenticeships and military service. "Supporting diverse hires post-recruitment is crucial for advancing equity goals," she notes.
  • Boosting Remote Team Engagement: Expert Insights
    Julia emphasizes the importance of intentional in-person gatherings for onboarding and team projects to enhance belonging and cohesion. She advises against perfunctory meetings and highlights the need for activities that benefit from face-to-face interaction. For remote teams, she suggests regular virtual mingling sessions and hybrid schedules to foster connections and community.
Recent Quotes
Sign up to view all
  • https://trainingmag.com/leadership-development-has-never-been-more-challenging-or-more-important/

    Change is everywhere. We work in a challenging and changing world. Generations are transitioning. Organizations are still struggling with where work should be done. Change management is never easy, but it has become tougher than ever.

    Since this issue of Training is focused on HR and learning and development (L&D) trends for 2024, I surveyed a few leaders in the field to gather a diversity of perspectives.

    When I asked Dr. Julia Phelan, co-founder of To Eleven, an innovative education consultancy firm, about her thoughts on training and development, she shared three:

    1. “Give people time to learn. There is an increasing awareness that learning takes time. Learning is hard and accumulates gradually.
    2. Establish, evaluate, and report learning outcomes. Training success usually is assessed only through approval ratings and positive feedback. Such ratings, however, do not truly gauge the impact of training. Measuring impact of the learning and development investment depends on the type of training and the stated goals.
    3. Help people manage their careers in ways that align with their personal goals. People are different and everyone on your team may not be on the same path. Kim Scott (in “Radical Candor”) goes into detail about the importance of supporting all employees by helping them increase their impact with an organization—in line with their goals as well as the goals of the company.”

  • What Makes a Productive e-Learning Experience? 44 Educators Answer

    During synchronous instruction/class time, ask questions of students, and require them to respond and submit an answer. This can be done anonymously, using a clicker system that works with Zoom and other online platforms, but pen and paperwork just as well. It can be helpful for students to be “required” to think, try and recall information, and respond to questions. This provides students an opportunity to confront their wrong answers or see that they are not alone in their misunderstanding (if other students made similar mistakes).

    If instructors ask questions which are, to all intents and purposes rhetorical, i.e., students are not required to submit a response, students may not engage, think about the question, or try to generate an answer. Consequently, they will not benefit from being confronted with the fact that they didn’t know something. Without this practice, students often mistake recognition of information with mastery.

    Knowing they may be required to answer questions can also lead to increased student engagement during class time.

    (https://maestrovision.com/2020/10/20/what-makes-a-productive-e-learning-experience/#tip25)

Headshots