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| Image from the course "Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life" offered by Coursera |
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about some great
opportunities for free high-quality online education. Because CPD is so
important (natural sciences is one of my specialization areas), and out of
genuine interest for the subject, I signed up for the 5-week course “Astrobiology
and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life” on Coursera, offered by the University
of Edinburgh and the UK Centre for Astrobiology and taught by professor Charles
Cockell. I successfully completed the course and got a certificate with distinction,
having scored 100% in the weekly quizzes.
I would like to share my own experience, which is very
positive.
Far from having to do with some science fiction stuff,
the course dealt with some concrete issues with scientific rigour: astrobiology
is a rapidly developing branch of science that aims at understanding the origin
and evolution of life on our planet and investigating the possibilities of life
elsewhere, whether it’s microbial or intelligent. Of course there are still a
lot of unanswered questions, things we still can’t understand. The lessons were
structured so that scientific data and reasonable hypotheses were effectively
balanced – I would say, science with an
open mind.
Astrobiology is also a very multidisciplinary subject
involving astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, genetics, geology, even
philosophy.
The course was designed to be accessible to a wide
audience but did not lack detailed insights, so my subject-matter knowledge
turned out to be helpful to grasp concepts better and link the dots.
Some of the things I especially appreciated are:
- you can pause and replay the videos as often as you
like;
- you can take extensive notes and use them as a
reference to carry out further research on the issues that pick your interest,
and to compile a glossary (very helpful for translators!);
- scripts and videos of the classes are available in
an archive and can also be downloaded, and stay there in your personal course
record even after you have completed the course, so you can get back to them
anytime;
- the teacher regularly interacted and answered some
of the most interesting questions from students in a dedicated forum, and the
course staff was very open to feedback;
- for those who take courses in one of their
non-native languages, it’s a great chance to keep your ear trained.
As for the quizzes, I think the difficulty level was
quite appropriate; what I especially liked was that some questions were not
strictly related to this or that sentence or slide from a given lecture –
instead, they required further research or, at least, an effort to go beyond a
single concept and try to grasp the bigger picture behind it.
Since February, Coursera has some news: 29 new
universities joined the platform, which means more courses on different
subjects and 4 more languages available: Spanish, Italian, French and Chinese,
even if for a very limited number of courses (the vast majority are in English).
Like I said, the classes are offered by different
universities and institutes, so the course logistics can vary a lot. I had a
very enjoyable experience with the Astronomy course and have already signed up
for more courses – I’ll report back!
What about your own experience with MOOCs? I’d like to hear from you.