Coursera
Hey, everyone! Vanderbilt recently announced that it is partnering with Coursera to offer free online courses, and when I got that e-mail I was somewhat confused. What is Coursera? Why does Vanderbilt want to be a part of it? As such, when I was able to attend Daphne Koller’s (co-creator of Coursera) presentation for extra credit, I was super-excited. I thought it would be a somewhat interesting discussion, but I never imagined just how incredible this program really is nor how influential it will be to my future career!
Coursera is a website that offers college classes online for free. These classes are exactly like physical ones in that they have weekly mandatory homework, discussion groups, projects, etc. (I’ll talk more about what extra features they have that make it even more like a real classroom later) The idea behind the website is that college tuition is expensive and spaces are limited, so education is highly coveted. Many people are not fortunate enough to attend college, even though education is a basic human right. Daphne Koller cited an example in South Africa where a few spots opened up at the University of Johannesburg and thousands of parents camped out at the school to be able to enroll their kids. When the doors opened, a stampede occurred and 20 people were injured. One woman even died. It was obvious to Koller that education was precious, and that people were not getting enough of it.
Coursera aims to provide education for those who cannot enroll in schools for one reason or another, but are extremely motivated to better themselves. The classes can be included on a CV to make you a more desirable employee (you even receive a graduation certificate at the end of each class), and they can help support lifelong learners who want to stay on top of their field.
What intrigued me the most about the program was how it was designed so as to share in the same benefits of a real classroom, and yet expand upon those because of the nature of using technology:
-
The image for the Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations class, offered February 2013. Since the instruction is video-based, students can tailor their own learning to fit their needs. They can speed up the videos, add subtitles, and re-watch them as many times as they want. Because the lessons are short (about 8-12 minutes long), it is easier to focus and you can watch the videos whenever is convenient for you.
- Because all of the students’ actions are done on the website, the makers can see how the students went about studying, asking questions, and basically learning. This can be great for future research studies about how people learn, but also for tailoring teacher instruction to fit the needs of the majority of students.
- The instruction is all interactive—videos have scheduled breaks for questions to keep you on task, for example. Similarly, there are Q&A boards where students can post questions and help their peers. Those who help answer the most questions improve their “reputation” on the site, which encourages an altruistic classroom environment. The mean response time is 22 minutes, which I think is incredible given the circumstances! There are even volunteer TAs (students who have taken the class before) who come on to answer questions frequently.
-
Image for the Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative class, offered July 2013. The environment is less threatening for asking questions. I’m actually somewhat terrified of speaking up in class, even if I have a very fundamental question. Because everything is online, students can pose questions without fear of embarrassment.
- You can take classes from some of the best teachers in the world! This also means that those great teachers can reach many more students than they would be able to in a regular class (like 100,000 instead of 400).
- The program focuses on mastery learning—you can re-do quizzes as many times as you want, which studies have shown improves your overall knowledge.
- Assessment can be done quickly and efficiently using the computer. Peer assessments are also integral to Coursera; they decrease the amount of strain placed on professors and help students improve their writing through self-evaluation and evaluation of their peers. By looking at what other people did well, they learn.
I could go on forever and ever about how great Coursera seems after this presentation, and I am excited to see how it will develop in the future. The use of technology in education is something extremely relevant to my future career, so I am so grateful I got to learn about it now as an undergrad. Vanderbilt provided me with the opportunity to attend such a discussion and the encouragement to do so. If it did not feel the need to be in the forefront of the development of education, I would never even have heard about Coursera, which would be an incredible shame.
By the way, Vanderbilt’s 5 free classes on Coursera start in February. My roommate’s (check out her blog!!) favorite professor is actually teaching one of the classes. If you’re interested in seeing the types of things Vanderbilt students learn, you should register. Granted, the system will be a bit different because of the online component, but I still think it would be interesting.
Here’s a recording of Daphne’s presentation, if you’re interested!