Reflecting on classes I have taken that have been meaningful, one example I think of is an epidemiology course I took. In general, I found the course material interesting, but the framing of the class allowed for me to retain more information. It was a smaller lecture which allowed for the ability to ask more questions to the instructor. It was graded on how much effort you put in rather than correctness because the instructor wanted students to think through the content. For me, this took away a lot of the stress of trying to get everything 100% correct and made me use more critical thinking and engagement with the material. The nature of the subject made it so there was not always one correct answer, so the process was more important. Drawing on the Week 6 Lecture 1: Developing Training Programs, the material was meaningful and there was regular feedback and discussion. This learning environment allowed students to succeed without being overly stressed on correctness or workload.
In contrast, another course I took stands out as a poor example of effectiveness. While the professor was extremely knowledgable and it was interesting content, there was very little structure to the course. Everything was graded based off of three large assignments, a midterm, and a final. The assignment instructions were very vague with no in class or online examples of formatting. Additionally, there was no way to know how well you were doing as the assignments were spaced out one every few weeks, and nothing was graded until the end of the term. Assignments were graded only on correctness, and without feedback from the previous assignment it made it difficult to know whether you were on track with the next one. The structure of the course was not beneficial to the learning environment, making it more stressful than it needed to be.
Comparing the two, the clear difference was in the feedback provided. Receiving consistent feedback was significantly more beneficial and allowed for me to learn a lot more. Even though the professor in the other class was arguably more experienced in his field, the framework and lack of organization made the course more stressful than necessary. In the other course, grading based off of effort rather than correctness took away the stress and facilitated more in depth learning and comprehension.