Why Coursera no longer rocks?
When Coursera opened its courses more than 10 years ago, the idea was fresh, innovative and cool. For sure, that was not the only massive open online courses (MOOCs) provider, but definitely one of the largest ones.
Wow — you can sit at home and study from the best universities in the world! And moreover — all this experience is free.
Back in 2012–2013 friends around me talked about how they’ve applied to this and that and what a great opportunity we have now. At that point of time I was thinking about whether I should apply to an MBA program or something to get new business skills and push my career… but I didn’t. I joined the “Grow to Greatness” course from University of Virginia which was based on the Darden Graduate School of Business MBA course. I did it from my home PC and they never asked for any payment or even card details at that point of time.
And I actually had a great study experience. I mean — it’s not just about lectures and case studies which I had to learn, but mostly — the learning environment. The course had a predefined start date and clear deadlines, they created goals and assignments for every week topic, same like in ‘real’ offline schools. Students who joined the course were encouraged to meet, talk to each other and create study groups. And they did — as everyone had to go through the same topics at the same time, so when someone used a discussion forum either to greet everyone or introduce him/herself or ask some specific question about this week’s material — there were plenty of people to reply and join the discussion. Simply because they’re on the same stage and doing the same tasks. My fellow students created study groups on facebook, exchanged linkedin profiles to connect, and I actually communicated with my peers from all over the world. And after 10 years I still have some contact with a few.
That was the start of my “MOOCs era”. I was so excited that after finishing one course I just enrolled in the other one. There were plenty to choose from and I did have free time to follow. Not the worst choice of hobby I guess.
“Programming for everybody” from the University of Michigan changed my life as I stopped being afraid of everything related to information technology technical stuff. It was simple and clear, and I loved our prof in the Slytherin uniform. Prof Charles Severance is still there, so if you’re afraid too — just google the course.
I also enjoyed that he actually met his online students in multiple countries, posting the videos about their common coffee time as part of the course experience. Probably Ukraine was not in his travel list, but if it was, I would be happy to join those meetings too.
“An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python” from Rice University made me believe that on top of understanding the basic tech stuff, I can actually create something using code. I remember my course project — an arcade game where you had to shoot asteroids. I put Luke Skywalker as a hero and added Star Wars music there, that was fun.
What I also enjoyed — the mechanism of peer review. First you submit your work (essay or a program), then — you need to review some of your fellow student’s work. You have an instruction on how to review, you’re entitled to grade, you also give feedback. And respectively you will receive feedback from your peers about your assignment too. This way your learning experience is not limited to your understanding of course material only, you also get to see other people’s thoughts and implementations. And because you _have_to_ grade it too, you learn it carefully, compared to yours. And I believe this experience is vital, especially when you’re trying to master technical skills — like python programming. After all, code review is usually part of everyday business when you do programming for life.
I think I’m becoming too nostalgic at this point of time so let’s get back to my first statement — why Coursera no longer rocks?
Since 2013 a lot of life has happened. Anyway this year I won the opportunity to get some free online study again — Google data analytics track offered on Coursera. To give some background, I finished my (full time offline) studies earlier on and earned a Master’s degree in data analytics from Singapore Management University.
But I’m also an education enthusiast. I just always keep thinking about how to make the learning experience better. For the current point of time my last professional engagement is being a part of BCG Rise digital academy, where I was on the teaching side.
So I wanted to try this track on Coursera both as a refresher for my data analytics skills and to see how the world of online courses changed since my journey ten years ago.
And — it did change.
The first thing to mention is that you are supposed to pay for your course, which I’m totally fine with. My opportunity was free, but I believe that paying for the service provided supporting this business is a good thing to do. There are still free learning resources online — like donation-based Khan Academy (which I’m a big fan of), but the majority of providers ask either for a per-course fee or subscription.
What else? No start or end date, no deadlines. Probably it sells better — like no pressure, do only what you can. Flexible schedule is promoted as a feature — learn at your own pace, you can not miss anything, you can access everything as long as your subscription is valid.
People have all sorts of lifestyles and free time for upskilling might not always be available. I understand this part. But personally I believe that commitment is an issue. If you can not allocate those few hours per week, why enroll?
And the most important thing — all this learning experience where you start at the same time, go through the same experience simultaneously with your peers is lost. I opened a discussion forum, introduced myself — and received zero feedback. Maybe other students joined this course already a year ago, or maybe they’re about to finish it and don’t care about fresh-starters — I don’t know. What I do know is that feedback is important and not receiving replies is frustrating.
They introduced a new (well, for me) tool — a “discussion prompt”. At the end of a section you were supposed to reflect on your learning journey and share it with the others. Literally you can not progress on material unless you share something. At the same time, there are no rules about what to share and no review, grade or any feedback on your thoughts. Similar to talking to a rubber duck. So why bother? I actually went through some replies to conclude that it’s not just my impression, the majority of students didn’t post anything meaningful, some just inserted dots or placeholders.
I understand that hiring teachers for providing feedback to everyone is a luxury, but why not using peer review mechanisms after all? So that student will be motivated to do this task properly. Ah okay, no deadlines… meaning that you can wait for your peer review forever.
I believe that a “flexible schedule” is what we call a jack of all trades master of none — every student with any time availability can learn but they will get lousy experience after all.
The other “new” tool — learning log. Very simple — you can download a pdf with some tasks… and forget about it. Technically you’re supposed to fill inside and track your progress, but again — no one will read it and no one cares if you’re actually doing it. It doesn’t influence your grade, you don’t submit it anywhere, and there is not even discussion on forums or something. As an educator (in a way) I would call it lazy teaching.
Lectures are still there and automatically-graded quizzes are there too — but no challenge, you can attempt as many times as you want just guessing answers. But even with quizzes and some advantages of interactivity I would compare my learning experience to reading a book — all on my own, at my own pace. No study groups, no teachers, no feedback mechanisms, no pressure. Everything is up to you.
And if the content would be better I might even continue, but that’s another story to tell…
