MOOCS REPORT

A. The background on your MOOCS selection.

Coursera’s online classes are designed to help students achieve mastery over course material. Some of the best professors in the world like neurobiology Professor and author Peggy Mason from university of Chicago and computer science professor and folding @ home director Vijay Pande, will supplement your knowledge through video lectures. They will also provide challenging assessment, interactive exercises during each lesson and the opportunity to use a mobile to keep up with your course work. Coursera also partners with the U.S state department to create learning hubs around the world. Students can get internet access, take care of courses and participate in weekly in person study groups to make learning even more collaborative.

B. Major learning outcome

We be the journey into the mysteries of the human brain by taking courses in neuroscience. We learnt how to navigate the data infrastructures that multinational corporations use.

C. The learning materials used

Following one of coursera’s skill tracks to try any one of its more than 560 available courses to help me achieve my academic and professional goals.

D. The specific assignment quizzes and projects you participated in.

Week 1

Fallacies of unclarity

9 Videos 7 practice quizzes

1. Video: Introduction to fallacies.

Practice quiz: introduction to fallacies.

2. Video: Vagueness

Practice quiz: Vagueness

Discussing prompt: Share your thoughts: Vagueness

Week 2

Fallacies of Relevance

10 videos, 5 Practices quizzes

1. Video: Fallacies of relevance and vacuity: Ad Hominem.

Discussion prompt: share your thoughts: Ad Hominem.

2. Video: Appeals of popular opinion.

Practice quiz: Appeals of popular opinion.

Discussion prompt: Share your thought: other authorities

Week 3

Refutation: Its varieties and pit falls

7 videos, 4 practices

1. Video: Refutation by parallel reasoning.

Practice quiz: Refutation by parallel reasoning.

Discussion prompt: Share your thought: refutation by parallel reasoning.

2. Video: Attacking a straw man.

Practice quiz: Attacking straw man.

Week 4

Catch-up and final quiz

1. Video: The Great shave.

Final Exams

E. How the specific assignment, quizzes and projects were accessed by instructor.

My instructor feedback written and verbal was very positive.

Strengths

1. A strong visual responds to the brief.

2. Strong and unique images on single subjects.

3. Exercise 3:3: Fresh and experimental.

Areas for improvement

1. Image size.

2. Will be good to show my imaginative thinking on my blog.

F. The work reviewed for your peers.

1. Passion and dedication shown by professors, peers were grateful for the course.

2. Some of the videos were confusing for English speakers.

3. It might benefit from a wider variety of more through examples.

4. Excellent.

G. Your own work that were reviewed by your peers.

1. Really great class.

2. Interesting and balanced. Looking forward meeting you again in Think Again II.

H. Reflections on the iron triangle (cost, access and quality) in the context of MOOCS experience.

Cost: Cost for the think again I course was free for all the four weeks but buying internet was a bit expensive.

Access: Everything about the course was through online.

Quality: Online course gave quality pictures, videos, and good sound clarity

MOOCS Experiences

Excellent course: It really makes a different in providing you a tool to analyze argument. I found the course very challenging as I find critical thinking very difficult. However, this course was extremely rewarding. This course teaches you how to reason well. You will know how to understand and assess argument by other people and how to construct good arguments of your own about whatever matters to you.

I. Reflections on whether or not the learning outcomes were achieved.

Learning outcomes were achieved. I learnt what arguments are made of. I also learnt about the definitions of arguments. Again, I learnt how to break an argument into its essential parts, how to put them in order to reveal their connections and how to fill the gaps in an argument.

Further, I learnt how to reason, argue reasoning and argue and its importance. The four short courses thought me how to do well in reasoning and do proper argument.

We further discuss how to identify, analyze and evaluate arguments by other people and how to construct argument of your own in order to help you decide what to believe and what to do. These skills were useful in dealing with whatever matters most to you.

J. Lessons learnt from participating in a MOOC; challenges and strategies you adopted in overcoming the challenges.

1. It was a very good course to understand and the importance of arguments and how to organize your thoughts to make a good argument. The professor is very good and interesting during teaching.

2. Professor Walter Armstrong is a remarkable scholar in the field of study. His way of delivering the information, making the knowledge very easy to be understood, giving the idea in a simple way and creating a joyful environment for the class qualifies him to be one of the best professors to attend this class with him.

3. The quizzes are useful for testing and understanding matters for learning from our mistakes. It is a good way for teaching and learning.

Challenges

1. At time, it was difficult to follow, not because of the teaching methods but because of my lack of free time.

2. Again, network problem was also a challenge. At times, the network would be bad and due to that it can be frustrating when you are eager to watch a video.

3. Electricity fluctuations, was a challenge.

Overcoming challenges

One has to wake up deep in the night to use the internet. If this is not done, it becomes difficult to get internet connections.