{"id":12418,"date":"2012-11-26t08:00:33","date_gmt":"2012-11-26t13:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=12418"},"modified":"2012-11-25t22:13:14","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26t03:13:14","slug":"getting-to-know-coursersa-assessments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2012\/11\/getting-to-know-coursersa-assessments\/","title":{"rendered":"getting to know coursera: assessments"},"content":{"rendered":"
by katie mcewen, graduate assistant<\/em><\/p>\n so far in our discussion of common features in coursera, we\u2019ve focused on two methods of presenting content online: video lectures<\/a><\/strong> and video discussions<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 certainly, students (whether online or in the traditional classroom) benefit from coherent, clearly sequenced, thoughtful and thought-provoking discussions and lectures.\u00a0 but, just as certainly, assessing comprehension, application, or mastery online poses a number of tricky questions for both students and faculty.\u00a0 how do faculty ensure rigor?\u00a0 and how do students work to demonstrate successful completion?\u00a0 in this post, we\u2019ll turn our attention to typical methods of assessment<\/strong> in coursera.<\/p>\n again, though, the question arises: is there be such a thing as \u201ctypical\u201d in this setting?\u00a0 and, once again, the answer is yes.\u00a0 with now over 200 courses across a wide spectrum of disciplines, the coursera consortium offers a global audience of learners access to a dizzying array of possibilities.\u00a0 yet, as we\u2019ve already seen, these courses often share more in common than might be immediately apparent from a course title.<\/p>\n much of this commonality is engineered by the coursera platform, which supports \u2014 on the level of technology, to say nothing of the level of ideology \u2014 certain formats, while discouraging others.\u00a0 these formats, in turn, reflect a certain approach to teaching and learning (often, as we\u2019ve noted rather teacher centered<\/strong>).\u00a0 despite this, however, coursera does also hold the potential to facilitate innovation<\/a>, not only online, but also in the on-campus classroom<\/a>.<\/p>\n assessments<\/strong> follow this common thread, in that coursera supports a limited number of assessment types: quizzes, programming assignments, and peer assessments.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n