The summer before my third year, I signed up for a deep learning course on Coursera. I was genuinely excited — I had a research co-op coming up and wanted to actually understand what I’d be working on. The first few weeks felt great. The videos were clear, the pace felt manageable, and I was picking things up.

Then week four hit, and everything changed.

The assignments got harder fast, with barely any explanation of what was expected. The only feedback I got was pass or fail — no hints, no guidance, just a score. I’d spend an hour on something, get a fail, and have no idea where I went wrong. The discussion forums were basically empty, so there was no one to even ask. I slowly just… stopped logging in.

Looking back, it makes a lot of sense why I lost motivation. Ertmer and Newby (2013) talk about how learners need to feel competence — like they’re actually growing. When your only feedback is a binary score, that feeling never comes. Self-Determination Theory adds two more pieces: relatedness (feeling connected to people around you) and autonomy (having some say in how you learn). Both were completely missing for me.

Weller (2020) describes connectivism — the idea that real learning happens through networks of people and resources, not just one course in isolation. Funnily enough, I actually did end up learning the material — just not from that course. I switched to fast.ai, read papers, and talked through concepts with grad students at my lab. Messier, but way more effective.

If that Coursera course had included even simple things — peer discussion, flexible projects, links to active communities — I think I would have finished it. Motivation isn’t just willpower. It’s built into the design.

References

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43–71. https://pressbooks.pub/lidtfoundations/chapter/behaviorism-cognitivism-constructivism/

Weller, M. (2020). 25 years of ed tech. AU Press. https://aulasvirtuales.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/25-years-of-ed-tech-by-martin-weller.pdf