Weeks are broken up into videos, readings, and any other material assigned.
The course is broken up into weeks, and each week includes videos, readings, and "other" material.
Videos have a transcript beneath them that highlights the sentences Stanton is speaking in real-time, making it easy for you to catch up on the week's homework even if you have difficulty hearing or can't play the audio out loud.
You can create notes and annotations using the transcript Coursera provides.
An added benefit to having access to the transcript of the video you're watching is that you can create notes pinned to certain chunks of text, allowing you to annotate the class without taking handwritten notes yourself.
If you hit "discuss" on the same bar as "notes" you'll be taken to the course's discussion board. If you hit "download" you'll be able to download to your computer both the transcript of the video and the slides shown in the lecture (but not the video itself).
Videos may include short quizzes that you can complete or skip.
Course videos may include helpful mini quizzes to help you summarize the main ideas of the video portion you just watched. You can complete them or opt to skip.
You can see what's coming up with the course's overview.
The course's overview section is essentially a table of contents, letting you anticipate course material and even the estimated time it should take you to complete (though I've found I can typically do it far faster than the site's estimates).
You can also visualize how far along in the course you currently are on the week one, week two, and so on progress bar at the top. I found this helpful for an online course since it can feel nebulous.
Find the course's resources all in one spot.
Find all the course's resources, like links to all the assigned readings, in one place.
Talk with peers in the discussion boards.
If you'd like to mimic the collaboration of in-class discussions, head to the discussion boards to talk about the material.
The few threads with the label "Mentor Replied" denote where one of Coursera's "mentors" have engaged with the discussion. Mentors are learners who completed this course in the past and now help other learners through it. Coursera offered them the position (and a percentage take them up on it) because they passed with a good grade and active participation.
While you don't have to engage with discussion boards, they can be extremely interesting.
While I personally don't want to spend excess time in course discussion boards typically, it's true that collaboration and discussion of a shared material deepen and strengthen your learning experience. That has, so far, been true here.
You can find interesting comments that make you see the course differently, and engage with it more earnestly (as the above example did for me). You also have the added benefit of engaging with learners that belong to a global community rather than the local community you're used to engaging with — and which may be too similar to yourself to elicit any broadened perception.
Find all your grades filed into one spot.
You can find all your grades here.
If you choose to earn a certificate for the course ($49) when you enroll, then you'll get access to all course materials, including graded assignments.
If you choose to audit the course, you'll still have access to all the course materials for this course, but you won't be able to submit assignments for feedback or a grade.
Like the course? Coursera recommends others like it.
Coursera will recommend other popular courses that are similar to this one, in case you'd like to keep learning.
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