Grammar and Punctuation

First a note: The description both here and on Coursera is not actually accurate: you can do the peer-reviewed assignments in audit mode. It's only the module quizzes that require purchase.

The course content itself is perfectly good, if not amazing - the video format wasn't really utilized well, only using presentation slides and voice-overs or simple explanation with the professor centered visually. I watched most of it on double speed. The presenter does speak very clearly, and that I could speed up so much usually means others find her speed exactly right.

The Grammar review was useful and presented systematically, but not comprehensive - it made several assumptions as to what one had and had not learned, and had not a word on say, relative clauses. A more accurate course title might not be a bad idea, especially since as it was it attracted many people who, without wishing to be insulting, should be looking first at a beginner or at least more comprehensive grammar course, not a review that assumes all knowledge has previously been covered - many of the submitted assignments were exactly right on what the course contents covered, showing that the participants were definitely paying attention, but had other mistakes that were not typos or slips, but a clear lack of comprehension.

The Punctuation rules were absolutely awesome, I finally have decent notes on it where previous teachers mostly said "Oh you learn by feel/reading a lot."

The course introduction speaks of a review of verb tenses and punctuation - which, to be fair, it delivers - but makes no mention of the sentence types, which takes up a lot of course "real estate."

The division of topics over the weeks was absurd - I was done with the first week in ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and that includes the optional pre-course survey.

Generally the time allotments for the different tasks were not well thought-out - every reading assignment was estimated at 10 minutes flat, every practice assignment at 2 hours., and every video assignment at the runtime of the video (often rounded down) without any allowance for the interrupting multiple choice questions. That's not a useful way to estimate how long the course is going to take you at all.

Several times, part of the slides were obscured by the subtitles, which is a definite accessibility issue - the only reason I did not deduct a star for it was that the transcript allowed one to check on that.

In conclusion: The course was educational and satisfying, but fell short of its full potential because the course creators did not take the time to truly think about what a Mooc brings to the course - it seems mostly to be a flat translation of a classic lecture hall class.

All in all, I would call it a solid effort.