As a GA Tech student for two years now (GA Tech's OMSCS program is all MOOCS), MOOCS are generally horrible ways to actually teach.
-I have no idea why anyone would have anxiety about being in class, I don't think that's a common problem.
-There's less focus in online classes because now you have to manage all the different ways you have to communicate with everyone, official and unofficial, in the hopes you can get enough interaction to slog your way through the horribly written assignments and figure out what they actually want you to do.
-There's essentially zero communication with teachers -- they're almost totally absent, communication with other students can be helpful, or not, and you don't always know. There are typically two or three TAs for up to 600 students, so any kind of focused interaction with a TA is almost unheard of, and even if you do get that their level of expertise is often in question.
-autograders work well for some very defined sorts of problems, but they don't work at all for most workflows. The TAs, in my experience, spend most of their limited time fixing autograder screwups.
> I have no idea why anyone would have anxiety about being in class, I don't think that's a common problem.
Like 1 in 5 college students[1], I have a diagnosed anxiety disorder. I frequently have anxiety in class, especially before the professor starts talking and is just scanning the room and occasionally making eye contact with me, or if I'm asked to interact with other students.
That said, I still think that MOOCs aren't remotely comparable to real college classes.
-I have no idea why anyone would have anxiety about being in class, I don't think that's a common problem.
-There's less focus in online classes because now you have to manage all the different ways you have to communicate with everyone, official and unofficial, in the hopes you can get enough interaction to slog your way through the horribly written assignments and figure out what they actually want you to do.
-There's essentially zero communication with teachers -- they're almost totally absent, communication with other students can be helpful, or not, and you don't always know. There are typically two or three TAs for up to 600 students, so any kind of focused interaction with a TA is almost unheard of, and even if you do get that their level of expertise is often in question.
-autograders work well for some very defined sorts of problems, but they don't work at all for most workflows. The TAs, in my experience, spend most of their limited time fixing autograder screwups.