6/5/2021 5 Secret Tips to Be Successful in Coursera

ONLINE 5 SECRET TIPS TO BE

LEARNING SUCCESSFUL IN COURSERA
Still looking for a Summer by Di Wu () | Jan 17, 2017
Session course?
(../../../2021/05/03/still-looking-for-a-
To help you better
summer-session-course)
5.3.2021 understand Coursera and
Looking for a Summer Session be successful in it, I am
course? (../../../../looking-for-a-summer- happy to share my own
session-course/2021/04/05/looking-for-a-
summer-session-course)
experience on taking a
4.5.2021 Coursera online course.
Strategies for Surviving and Here are three reasons
Thriving on Zoom
(../../../2021/03/16/strategies-for-surviving-
why I took it:
and-thriving-on-zoom)
3.16.2021 . My major and career path is in Education eld, so taking a
New professional certi cate Psychology course will enhance my professional
program teaches cutting-edge knowledge.
cyberGIS and geospatial data
science (../../../2021/03/12/new- . The course is taught by a prestigious professor from a top-
professional-certi cate-program-teaches- ranked university and it is FREE!
cutting-edge-cybergis-and-geospatial-
data-science)
. It is an online course which allows exible learning pace.
3.12.2021
Three strategies for helping
The course name is Buddhism and Modern Psychology which
college students (or anyone) is a six-week long learning period, and it turned out to be an
become better writers
extraordinary learning experience. By sharing my learning
(../../../2021/02/19/three-strategies-for-
helping-college-students-(or-anyone)- experience and re ection, it may help future Coursera
become-better-writers) learners be more successful.
2.19.2021
Looking to advance soil or water Choose What You Love
sciences career? Check out the
NRES certi cate programs!
(../../../2021/02/10/looking-to-advance-soil-
A long time ago I registered another two Coursera courses,
or-water-sciences-career-check-out-the- but I ended up only nishing the rst-week course due to my
nres-certi cate-programs!)
own laziness. Unlike traditional courses, you will not receive
2.10.2021
any punishment by not showing up or not nishing
Survey Says: Students want
more support, exibility, and assignments in Coursera. So this time I have to pick a course
ways to connect that I am either strongly interested or bene cial to my career
(../../../2021/01/29/survey-students-want-
more-support-ways-to-connect-with-
so that I would be motivated to nish the course. Once you
faculty-sta -and-each-other)
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6/5/2021 5 Secret Tips to Be Successful in Coursera

1.29.2021 choose the course you deeply love, you just need to make a
Adapting to Online Learning commitment to it.
(../../../2021/01/11/adapting-to-online-
learning)
1.11.2021 Prepare for the Course
NetMath adds upper-level
courses (../../../2021/01/07/netmath-adds- Just like other traditional courses, I went through the course
upper-level-courses) syllabus and borrowed textbooks from library one week
1.7.2021
before the course o cially begin. I also played around on the
Looking for a Winter Session
Coursera platform a little bit to get familiar with the Learning
course? (../../../2020/11/18/looking-for-a-
winter-session-course) Management System. Besides, I navigated through “Grades”
11.18.2020 and “Discussion Forums” sections on the platform and learned
Why Statistics? (../../../2020/11/16/why- how the assignment, discussion activity, and exam will be
statistics)
11.16.2020 done () . I strongly recommend you do the same to save
Winter Session o ers a variety yourself time later.
of online courses
(../../../2020/10/15/winter-session-o ers-a- Get Feedback from Peers
variety-of-online-courses)
10.15.2020
In Coursera you will only get scores and feedback from peers
Student Resources for Learning
Online (../../../2020/10/01/student- instead of professors. At rst, I doubted whether the peers’
resources-for-learning-online) feedback would be valuable. But later, I found that this new
10.1.2020
grading system provides me much more beyond the
A Day in the Life of an (Online)
College Student (../../../2020/05/13/a-
traditional classroom. I have received some considerate and
day-in-the-life-of-an-(online)-college- long comments from peers, which encourage me to rethink
student)
some critical concepts. Besides, it is very inspiring and
5.13.2020
enjoyable when I am reading my peers’ essay where I learn so
Navigating Group Projects In An
Online Course many new ideas and perspectives and improve my critical
(../../../2020/04/16/navigating-group- thinking, analysis skill, and logical thinking.
projects-in-an-online-course)
4.16.2020
Interact with Online Classmates
Ways to connect with your
online classmates during a time
of social distancing
Lots of people are questioning whether online learning is
(../../../2020/03/22/ways-to-connect-with- capable of high-quality interaction. In fact, Coursera does have
your-online-classmates-during-a-time-of-
high-quality interaction! The discussion forum is the main tool
social-distancing)
3.22.2020 for learners to interact with each other and exchange ideas
Adapting to Being an Online and opinions. In Coursera’s discussion forum, you will see
Student (../../../2020/03/12/adapting-to- some volunteer mentors replying to learner’s questions. These
online-learning)
3.12.2020 mentors just like TAs in traditional classes–they previously
How to Connect With Your achieved good scores in the same course and now love to
Online Classmates help new learners. Another interaction between learners and
(../../../2020/03/04/how-to-connect-with-
your-online-classmates)
the instructor in some courses is the O ce Hours where the
3.4.2020 instructor creates a new video every week to answer the most
Apps Every Student Should emergent and di cult questions from that week. With the help
Have (../../../2020/02/07/apps-every-
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6/5/2021 5 Secret Tips to Be Successful in Coursera

student-should-have) of social media, for example, Twitter, Facebook, and

2.7.2020
discussion forums, the instructor is able to collect many
5 Tips for Success using
Coursera for Illinois interesting questions and respond via a short video or
(../../../2020/01/24/5-tips-for-success-using- announcement. Even though it may take some time to adapt
coursera-for-illinois)
1.24.2020
these new tools and methods, it can be very e ective if we
1 adapt them enthusiastically. The only thing you need to do is
(https://online.illinois.edu/articles/online- to be open and present!
learning) 2
(https://online.illinois.edu/articles/online- Manage Your Time Wisely
learning/page/2) 3
(https://online.illinois.edu/articles/online- The workload for my course was about 6 hours a week.
learning/page/3) Basically, I watch some lecture videos and nish some
readings every week. There are only two essay assignments
throughout the course. The challenge for me is that I have to
work in the day, so I have to study for this course at night or
on the weekends. Once, I missed one week of content due
while traveling and I had to catch-up by nishing two weeks of
the course within one weekend, which was a painful
experience. So my suggestion is to nish the weekly content
as soon as possible and do not wait until the last minute.

Looking back, the overall Coursera experience was fantastic!

Getting a 96.8 nal score from three other peers is truly
rewarding. I also read lots of books and gained new
knowledge and understanding in psychology and religion. My
tips might not apply to every Coursera course because every
course is designed di erently, but it will remind you to keep
open-minded to new ways of learning and continuously learn,
grow and share in the world classroom.

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