Tag / frustration

by Nicolle

My Coursera specialization experience summed up in 7 tweets.

I came. I tried. I tweeted.

These Twitter reflections read like a stream of complaints. And in a way they are. But they serve another purpose: reminding me about the challenges around creating online learning experiences that are engaging and motivating.

I’m building online courses for students. Right now they’re on-demand and asynchronous. In the future I aim to move to a hybrid model. I’m constantly thinking about how we improve engagement in online learning.

A note on forums: Courses rely on forums as their interactive element. While there is interaction (in some forums), the experience isn’t enjoyable. In fact, it’s often more work. When I get stuck, I have to search for the correct forum and skim through elements to find my answer. And not all courses have active forums, as evidenced by the last tweet. This Coursera course had run before so most responses, if there were any, were old.