Mike: I feel that the weekly deadlines and set course schedule helped promote the stability and drive I needed to succeed. I was constantly pushing myself to get assignments in on time or in the few cases where I would finish early, reward myself with some hang-time with the band.
The forums were a reliable source for help and a sounding board for ideas, examples, venting, site issues, and most importantly, interaction with peers and TAs. In my darkest hours, when no solutions seemed available, I leaned heavily on you, Phil. I am very grateful for your kind insistence and guidance, never giving me the answers directly but helping me to find them on my own. I think having someone to discuss coding with or problem solving in general, without fear of judgement, has been immensely beneficial to my learning experience.
Note: I emphasized the previous point, because I know how this type of pedagogy has helped students who often struggle with school. The best part is, they end up understanding it better than those who absorb it via other means.
Phil: What did you like about the course and the environment?
Mike: Once I started with the lectures, I was immediately drawn to Professor Grimson’s assured and kind demeanor. His style of teaching and the simple ways he had of breaking down complex ideas such as recursion were very comforting, considering the stress the weekly class assignments had on me. Having now taken courses on other MOOC platforms, I have a greater appreciation for the layout and format of edX.
First off, I’ve always been attracted to clean design, and the website and information presented never felt cluttered. Everything was always easily accessible. The Python interpreter they used for quizzes and assignments has a simple interface and gives back informative tracebacks and error messages, which were very helpful in debugging my flawed code.
6.00x definitely felt very organized in a way that I haven’t experienced with any other MOOC yet.
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