Schwerd-Schüler studieren in Harvard

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Zu Beginn konnten wir uns gemäß unserer Interessen aus dem Angebot eines Anbieters
(Coursera/edx) einen Themenbereich wählen, in dem wir anschließend einen Kurs belegten.
Dabei ging das Interesse von A wie Art bis Z wie Zoology. Nachdem über einen festgelegten
Zeitraum von mindestens einer Woche, Kenntnisse durch Videos und Kursmaterial erworben
worden waren, wurden anschließend im Englischkurs die Ergebnisse präsentiert. Dabei ging
es weniger um die Darstellung eines bestimmten Fachthemas als vielmehr darum, einen
Einblick in das Fernstudium, die Anforderungen und die jeweilige Universität mit ihren
Lehrenden zu gewinnen.
Dabei stellten wir fest, dass MOOCs über ein riesiges Angebot an Fortbildungsmöglichkeiten
verfügen, wobei die Themen durch Videos zumeist interessant dargestellt werden und auch
die Verständlichkeit bei einfachen Themen selbst für Schüler gegeben ist. Wir mussten uns
dabei mit den verschiedenen Akzenten der englischsprachigen Dozenten auseinandersetzen,
was nicht immer einfach war. Auch machte das fachspezifische Vokabular der
unterschiedlichen Themenbereiche manchmal Schwierigkeiten, wobei Untertitel bei den
Vorlesungen hilfreich für das Verständnis waren. Interessant war für uns der Wechsel zum
üblichen Unterrichtsgeschehen besonders auch in Bezug auf die Themenbereiche. Einen
Einblick in universitäres Arbeiten, welches ein hohes Maß an Selbstständigkeit verlangt,
wurde durch die Teilnahme an den MOOCs ebenfalls vermittelt.
Insgesamt können wir die MOOCs weiterempfehlen, da sie auch im Hinblick auf ein späteres
Berufsleben hilfreich sein können. Einige Schüler unseres Kurses konnten sogar ein Zertifikat
erwerben, welches ihnen bei späteren Bewerbungen von Nutzen sein könnte.

 

 

Here are some opinions about the learning experiences with COURSERA

My topic was called „Influencing people“ and it was about how others can influence you and how
you can influence others by simple methods. It helped me a lot for my daily life because many people
are influenced by others without realizing it. Now I can use the methods from my course to stop
getting influenced too much. I really like the way open online courses work. You can be more
spontaneous and you can stay at home. Coursera is a great online course website because it offers
many different topics which are very interesting for everyone. Furthermore you can talk to others,
interact with them by the use of live cam and just learn more about things you are interested in.
Every course has its specific length so you can decide which one to choose.
N. S.
I chose the course child nutrition and cooking and really enjoyed this topic, because I am very
interested in a balanced nutrition and the course was not only about child nutrition  but  also about
adult nutrition. I was able to learn many things for the future from this course. You had to watch five
videos per week and do quizzes to get a certificate. When you finish the course you can buy a
personalized and validated certificate for about 50€. I think this course was very helpful to get a little
insight into studying online.
I can recommend this website to everyone who does not know what he or she would like to study
and wants an insight into what studying at university is like.
M.W.
I think that Coursera is a very useful tool to get familiar with topics you are interested in.
It is just like going to school from home. I learned a lot about programming on the computer. Often,
it was very cheap to get a certificate, but in my case it was nearly about 360€.
To put it in a nutshell, it is a good opportunity to learn something about the topic you are interested
in.
I would recommend Coursera to everyone who wants to do more for school in his free time and who
is willing to spend a lot of time to learn even more.
In my case it was about 7 weeks and 2-3 hours a week which was very easy to manage.
J.W.

Cousera is a great platform to pursue your interests in different areas. My course was about
“Advanced interviewing techniques in a job interview”. The ability to read, watch videos and do
quizzes made the learning more interesting.
All in all I would highly recommend students to do any course he or she wants to do. The variety is
huge and it is a great opportunity to improve the English language.
J.E.

We chose the Coursera course “Stanford Introduction to Food and Health”, because we are very
interested in food and a healthy lifestyle. Our favourite hobby is doing various kinds of sports and the
key for success is the appropriate nutrition. We collected knowledge about essential nutrients and
how to prepare a healthy plate. The most important fact we learned was that you can have a better
and longer life just by changing the way of eating. To put it all in a nutshell, we recommend the
course to everybody who wants to achieve a new lifestyle on their own.
L.S./E.S.

 For me personally, doing a course on „Coursera“was a nice experience. I chose a course about
supporting children with difficulties in reading and writing. The teachers talked about the causes and
possible teaching approaches.
I think it was very helpful to enroll in this course not just because of the topic but also because I have
learnt what it means to learn independently. I had to decide what I wanted to write down to pass the
test. There was nobody who controlled me. I guess that was a good experience I will be able to apply
my knowledge in the future.
E.S.
 

My topic was about „Buddhism and modern Psychology“. For me it was important to learn
something which was completely new to me. Besides this, I am interested in Biology, so this
course seemed to fit in with my expectations.
All in all it was not difficult to understand the language, because below each video, there was
a summary of the content of the video. Furthermore at the end of the week there was a special
video, in which the professor gave answers to questions.
What I also liked was the way he presented each topic. The use of statistics and pictures made
it more interesting and reliable.
Having taken all these aspects into account, I come to the conclusion that it was a great
project which I can definitely recommend.
A.M.


I decided to do the course „Speak English Professionally: In Person, Online and On the
Phone“ from the Georgia Tech Language Institute.
The reason why I chose it  was because I wanted to improve my English and be prepared for
everyday situations. It was five weeks long and included short videos, supplemental material
to repeat the information and a quiz at the end of every module to check my knowledge.
All in all I can recommend the course because the videos were easy to understand,
informative and did not take a lot of time.
R.K.