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List of the Most Popular MOOCs

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Re: List of the Most Popular MOOCs

#81

Post by acjohnson55 »

brudgers wrote: post #71
acjohnson55 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Coursera's approach seems to capture the worst of both worlds of traditional and online ed. It lacks the live lecture and person-to-person contact of a traditional college course. Yet, it maintains the timeboxed approach of traditional ed, which exists chiefly to provide simultaneity, to scale real-life human contact to lecture-hall size. Now I realize that some aspects of the way some courses are run requir…

I've taken a number of Coursera courses. The format works better for some courses than others. The key is that there is a recognizable student cohort and that the students are enthusiastically engaged in live discussions. That tends to happen less in the fifth offering when the primary instructor has moved on to other things. Anyway, there's pedagogical theory that favors time boxing [and some that doesn't]. Coursera…

I'd be interested in reading about that theory, if you have any good resources. I assumed it was for pragmatic reasons. I wonder if the theories consider a context of the opportunities the Internet would create, or if they assume an offline context.

Re: List of the Most Popular MOOCs

#82

Post by acjohnson55 »

repsilat wrote: post #74
acjohnson55 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Coursera's approach seems to capture the worst of both worlds of traditional and online ed. It lacks the live lecture and person-to-person contact of a traditional college course. Yet, it maintains the timeboxed approach of traditional ed, which exists chiefly to provide simultaneity, to scale real-life human contact to lecture-hall size. Now I realize that some aspects of the way some courses are run requir…

> ... worst of both worlds ... timeboxed approach Just to provide the other side of the story, I've done about a dozen MOOCs (mostly through Coursera) and I'm most of the way through Georgia Tech's online masters program. Having to make progress every week is contributes a lot to me actually finishing these courses. The Udacity courses I've signed up for never get touched because there's no urgency. Ditto the textboo…

I think that's fine, but if the urgency is manufactured, I'd argue that it should be an additional feature to provide that urgency, rather than the default.

I'm the other side of the coin. I may start off on schedule, but once life intervenes and I fall behind, and I've gotten a couple zeros, I'm like why bother catching up? As a result, I've only successfully finished one out of the 6 or 7 Coursera courses I've started.

Re: List of the Most Popular MOOCs

#84

Post by alinspired »

Here is the list without 50 pagedowns:

  1. Programming Mobile Applications for Android Handheld Systems – Part 1 / University of Maryland
  2. Introduction to Philosophy / University of Edinburgh
  3. Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence / Case Western Reserve
  4. Introduction to Computer Science / Harvard University
  5. Data Analysis and Statistical Inference / Duke University
  6. Gamification / University of Pennsylvania / Wharton
  7. Social Psychology / Wesleyan University
  8. Circuits and Electronics / MIT
  9. Think Again: How to Reason and Argue / Duke University
  10. Creativity, Innovation and Change / Penn State
  11. A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior / Duke University
  12. Learn to Program: The Fundamentals / University of Toronto
  13. Game Theory / Stanford University, University of British Columbia
  14. Greek and Roman Mythology / University of Pennsylvania
  15. Startup Engineering / Stanford University
  16. Computational Investing, Part I / Georgia Institute of Technology
  17. Financial Markets / Yale University
  18. Introduction to Artificial Intelligence / Stanford University
  19. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming / MIT
  20. Introduction to Financial Accounting / University of Pennsylvania / Wharton
  21. Modern & Contemporary American Poetry / University of Pennsylvania
  22. Machine Learning / Stanford University
  23. Data Analysis / Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
  24. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python / MIT
  25. Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science / Harvard University
  26. Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge, and Consciousness / MIT
  27. Introduction to Operations Management / University of Pennsylvania / Wharton
  28. Introduction to Mathematical Thinking / Stanford University
  29. Justice / Harvard University
  30. A History of the World Since 1300 / Princeton University
  31. Creative Programming for Digital Media & Mobile Apps / University of London/ Goldsmiths
  32. Neural Networks for Machine Learning / University of Toronto
  33. Learn to Program – Crafting Quality Code / University of Toronto
  34. Critical Thinking in Global Challenges / The University of Edinburgh
  35. Statistics – Making Sense of Data / University of Toronto
  36. Introduction to Biology – The Secret of Life / MIT
  37. Drugs and the Brain / Caltech
  38. Introduction to Databases / Stanford University
  39. The Ancient Greek Hero / Harvard University
  40. Social Network Analysis / University of Michigan
  41. Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical & Public Health Research / Harvard University
  42. Introduction to Astronomy / Duke University
  43. Human Health and Global Environmental Change / Harvard University
  44. Software Defined Networking / Princeton University
  45. Introduction to Statistics: Descriptive Statistics / UC Berkeley
  46. Computing for Data Analysis / Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  47. Functional Programming Principles in Scala / Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
  48. The Camera Never Lies / University of London/ Royal Holloway
  49. Calculus One / Ohio State University
  50. Maps and the Geospatial Revolution / Penn State

Re: List of the Most Popular MOOCs

#85

Post by akshat_h »

ghaff wrote: post #67
frigg wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's really no "right" answer to how asynchronous courses should be. Sure, but given Coursera's popularity it seems to be doing something right. >On the other hand, if you run things on a tight schedule, real life will get in the way for a lot of people in that many of the better courses are fairly significant time commitments. But is it? The time commitments are watching few videos, learning and doing the assign…

I don't really disagree. As I said, if you take away all the constraints, what's unique about Coursera or any other MOOC, really? That said, people with busy schedules, travel, etc. can easily get behind on a more time-consuming course and, at that point, the natural reaction is just to drop it. My personal preference is to have structure but to build sufficient wiggle-room in that someone can catch up a week or two.

Can't remember exactly which courses, but there were some which dropped off your lowest assignment grade. Of course one could argue that it isn't really about the assignment, but still psychologically, I felt that was a good compromise between maintaining the balance between flexibility and continuity.

Re: List of the Most Popular MOOCs

#87

Post by sawwit »

geomark wrote: post #49

I've completed a bunch of Coursera courses. Quality really varies. Even within the 9 course Data Science specialization [1] track some courses were rather poor while the rest were very good. I'm currently taking the #5 rated course [2]. It is excellent. But I'm only taking it because the Statisical Inference course in the Data Science specialization was so weak. I would also recommend the Cryptography 1 course by Dan…

https://www.coursetalk.com has quite good reviews, especially on the more popular courses.

Re: List of the Most Popular MOOCs

#88

Post by chris_wot »

mathgeek wrote: post #76
chris_wot wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I get that bit, it's the next part I always get confused by. I'm sure I'll get it in the end. :-)

If you haven't yet, watch the Khan Academy videos on the chain rule. Then use the related practice questions until you've mastered them. That's how I got the concepts drilled into my head for almost all of Calculus I and II.

FWIW, I found the proof here:

http://kruel.co/math/chainrule.pdf

I'd actually tried to understand it earlier, but I got stuck at the point it says:

  We now use these equations to rewrite f (g(x + h)). In
  particular, use the first equation to obtain
     
    f(g(x + h)) = f(g(x) + [g′(x) + v]h),

  and use the second equation applied to the right-hand-side
  with k = [g′(x) + v]h and y = g(x).
It was how they got k that tricked me. But then I realise that actually the bit I was missing was that y=g(x), and so as:

  f(g(x + h)) = f(g(x) + [g′(x) + v]h)
You can actually make this:

  f(y + k) = f(y + [g'(x) + v]h)
Thus k = (g'(x) + v)h
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