MOOC’s aren’t typical of most online classes. In the online classes my kids and I took, you submit a paper in dropbox and get it back graded with comments. Many in person classes don’t have exams but have papers. I have only taken one online class that had an exam but it wasn’t counted for much and there were a number of papers, two long and some short.
MOOC’s get so much press. I really don’t understand it. Are there people out there still who think MOOC’s are the only kind of online class there is? I really don’t understand why Harvard et al get so excited about these.
I tried a MOOC in modern poetry. To me, it was total chaos. Some people in certain communities arrange to meet to discuss, I heard. They are free, which is great. But most of us pay for online classes for credit and the quality, while variable, is often very high.