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Essay / The Importance of Individualization in Higher Education
However, Coursera teachers act more like a TV host disseminating knowledge rather than scaffolding learning step by step. The video is pre-recorded and put on the platform at the start of the course. Students constitute an audience that watches the videos as an outsider rather than a participant in the course since there is no interaction between teachers, students, and the students themselves. Students have no one to turn to when they encounter a problem. Teachers do not know the students' learning situation, what they are learning and what they are missing. Different students with different academic backgrounds and different learning expectations are treated the same. Additionally, the assessment is based on automatic grading and peer review. This seems to be a good method for determining ZDP development, as it requires independent problem solving and provides the opportunity to collaborate with peers. However, this leads to the problem of poor assessment quality, which does not accurately assess student progress and achievement. Personally, I sometimes get full marks by typing two random letters, when the actual requirement for each answer is a paragraph length of high quality. Hew and Cheung also explained (2014) that essay grading software cannot truly assess the quality of writing; Peer assessment in MOOCs is invalid since grading relies on the assumption that students have the ability to grade, "like the blind leading the blind." ».”