What do you think this image is saying? How does it relate to or comment on society or current events? Can you relate to it personally? What is your opinion of its message?
Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
The World Economic Forum predicts that 42% of the core skills within existing jobs on average are expected to change by 2022. Lifelong learning and continuous retraining, delivered through online learning, can help meet these evolving skill demands. Online platforms can be a powerful tool for universities to engage with learners–from alumni and faculty to part-time students–throughout their lives to develop the skills they need to participate in a rapidly evolving workforce.
In Part III of our latest report, The Unbounded University: Unlocking Opportunities through Online Learning, we uncover how universities can provide lifelong learning opportunities and find ways to engage learners at every age to ensure their skill set remains relevant. Our analysis shows that skills in the data science and technology domains decay faster than any other field of study, with the median half-life of a data science or technology skill about seven years shorter than the half-life of a skill outside of those domains such as business or social sciences.
University faculty using the Coursera platform are also engaging with cutting-edge trends and skills within their fields, including business, technology, and data science skills like blockchain, machine learning, and IoT. Gamification has also become a trending skill for faculty on the platform.
Download the full report here for more insights about the Unbounded University and Coursera for Campus, including deeper analysis of the half life of specific skills across the business, technology, and data science domains.
Nos emociona presentarles a Johan Stiven Muños Jimenez. Un Ingeniero Industrial que recibió su título universitario dos semanas antes de que empezara la cuarentena estricta en Colombia por el COVID-19. A pesar de la cuarentena y el aislamiento, Johan completó más de 73 cursos en menos de tres meses. En la historia que nos comparte, nos describe cómo a través de Coursera ha tenido la oportunidad de apoyar su crecimiento personal y profesional con acceso a universidades y empresas de clase mundial.
Mi nombre es Johan Stiven Muñoz Jimenez. Soy de Medellín, Colombia y recientemente me gradué como ingeniero industrial. Dos semanas después de recibir mi título como ingeniero, se estableció una estricta cuarentena en Colombia, lo que complicó mi búsqueda de trabajo y el hecho de que pudiera empezar mi carrera en el mundo laboral. Sin embargo, decidí que este podría ser el momento perfecto para desarrollar nuevas habilidades, así que empecé a ver videos en Youtube, a acceder a bibliotecas virtuales y frecuentar otros sitios web educativos.
Un día mientras veía televisión nacional, me enteré de la alianza entre Coursera y la alcaldía de Medellín. Inmediatamente me inscribí y unos días después me convertí en un beneficiario de esta alianza. Desde entonces he estado aprendiendo de las mejores universidades del mundo desde la comodidad de mi casa.
Al principio, quería completar uno o dos cursos pero con el tiempo estudiar en Coursera se volvió mi hobby. Hoy he completado más de 73 cursos en menos de tres meses. He aprendido sobre negocios, habilidades gerenciales, Lean Six Sigma, cadenas logísticas de abastecimiento, entre otros. Mi prioridad fue encontrar cursos que me gustaran a nivel personal pero donde también veía oportunidad en el área profesional.
Para ser honesto, al principio era un poco escéptico sobre el aprendizaje en línea. Pensaba que si el aprendizaje presencial tenía sus dificultades, aprender en línea sería aún más difícil. Por eso me sorprendió cuando comencé mi primer curso en Coursera: descubrí que podía aprender a mi propio ritmo, repetir o rebobinar videos tanto como quisiera, y pude aclarar dudas y obtener retroalimentación de otros estudiantes y profesores. Nunca imaginé que podría completar tantos cursos durante el período de cuarentena.
En general, mi experiencia de aprendizaje en Coursera ha sido muy emocionante. Para mí, ver cada video es como ver un episodio de un programa de televisión. Cada curso enseña un tema, herramienta o metodología diferente que se puede aplicar fácilmente en la vida diaria. Cada vez que termino una tarea siento curiosidad por lo que encontraré en la próxima lección. También encontré un espacio seguro en los foros disponibles para cada curso; una herramienta positiva donde los estudiantes pueden compartir sus dudas u opiniones sin ser juzgados. Esto definitivamente promueve un ambiente de aprendizaje acogedor.
Coursera me ha dado la oportunidad de llenar algunos vacíos académicos, de explorar nuevas áreas de conocimiento con las mejores universidades del mundo, y de desarrollar nuevas habilidades que espero usar en un futuro cercano.
Con toda esta información y conocimiento, espero retribuir a mi comunidad y ayudar a mis familiares y amigos a alcanzar sus metas. A mis padres les debo lo que soy hoy y planeo usar mis nuevas habilidades para ayudarlos a conseguir un trabajo estable. Mi objetivo personal es trabajar en la Alcaldía de Medellín para facilitar proyectos que brinden oportunidades para que personas como yo estudien y crezcan personal y profesionalmente.
En resumen: aprovechen al máximo este mundo digital en el que vivimos. Aprovechen la oportunidad de descubrir y aprender toda la información que esté disponible para ustedes, encuentren formas de fortalecer sus talentos y no tengan miedo de pedir ayuda. Nunca se rindan, especialmente ante la adversidad. Y no se comparen con los demás: la belleza del mundo es que todos somos diferentes y cada uno de nosotros puede contribuir a que sea un lugar mejor.
Conquista la incertidumbre: no compares tu progreso con el progreso de los demás porque cada mente es un universo diferente.
Los invito a todos a que le den una oportunidad a Coursera. Aprendan de las mejores universidades del mundo con profesores altamente calificados. Esto realmente puede ayudarlos a lograr sus objetivos personales y profesionales.
I love this modern industrial kitchen with its neutral palette and pops of turquoise. This vibrant turquoise & charcoal color palette really packs a punch and adds a dynamic feeling to any room or blog design. If you are tired of all the pink and pastel looks then you should try this palette.
Turquoise & Charcoal Color Palette
Below I have created for you a simple mood board featuring today’s color combination. It is in perfect Pinterest format, so feel free to pin it for later. I love how pink flowers look in front of the clear blue sky.
These colors also make for a stunning blog design.
Below you will find a sample of turquoise designs from our WordPress Theme shop.
See our collection of other gorgeous color palettes by visiting our color palette section.
What do you think about our light turquoise & charcoal color palette? Do you like this combination? Where would you use it? We would love to hear your thoughts, so make sure to share them in the comments below.
Lastly, learn about the power of color in blog design in our blog post to see how important colors are in all the projects you create.
6. The essay ends with a call to action — a call to art — in the midst of a pandemic that has depleted America’s artists and art institutions, and other challenges our country faces:
We need art that shakes us and we need lots of it — not just in major cities, but also in rural America, in suburbs, on the brick walls of police precinct houses. We need art as commentary — not the safe, sterile kind — art to counteract deception, art that reminds us that even when things seem beyond fixing, they are not beyond describing.
Do you agree? Should art engage with the challenges of the moment — the pandemic, the border and struggles for racial justice? Should it uplift and shake us? What can art and murals say about the moment we are living through that prose alone cannot? What role does art play in your everyday life? What role should it have?
7. Media Literacy. This piece is an Opinion essay, not a news article. In the Opinion section, writers share their opinions in their own voices. How can you tell this is an Opinion piece rather than a news article simply reporting facts?
Going Further
Option 1: Analyze a mural.
Look back over the murals featured in the article: Which stands out or affects you most?
Using vivid and detailed sensory language, analyze and interpret one of the murals — drawing the viewer into its artistry and details, its deeper meanings and messages.
To help you formulate your analysis, you might use these three questions modified from our What’s Going On in This Picture? feature:
Then dig a little deeper:
What do you notice about the people, places, images and symbols in the mural?
Why did this artwork stand out to you? What do you find eye-catching, provocative, surprising or moving about it?
What connections can you make between the artwork and your life or experience? Does this mural remind you of anything else you’ve seen or read?
What do you think is the purpose of this artwork? What do you think the artist wanted to communicate?
What questions would you ask the muralist if you could?
You can write your analysis and interpretation as a short essay, or consider a creative presentation application like Google Slides, Thinglink or Prezi to help you focus your audience’s attention on visual details of the mural you find most significant, the way the article allows Ms. Spechler to zoom in on details a casual observer might miss.
Option 2: Learn more about muralists.
“That century-old Mexican tradition of telling stories on public walls, which arguably goes back much further, to Aztec cave paintings, continues to thrive in El Paso,” Ms. Spechler writes.
What aspects of mural art and artists would you like to learn more about? Choose one mural artist, a mural movement or period to explore, and then share what you learned with your class.
: covered with knobs or knots, especially to describe trees, roots or wood
_________
The word gnarled has appeared in 32 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Dec. 2 in “The Social Life of Forests” by Ferris Jabr:
In the summer of 2019, I met Simard in Nelson, a small mountain town not far from where she grew up in southern British Columbia. One morning we drove up a winding road to an old-growth forest and began to hike. The first thing I noticed was the aroma. The air was piquant and subtly sweet, like orange peel and cloves. Above our heads, great green plumes filtered the sunlight, which splashed generously onto the forest floor in some places and merely speckled it in others. Gnarled roots laced the trail beneath our feet, diving in and out of the soil like sea serpents. I was so preoccupied with my own experience of the forest that it did not even occur to me to consider how the forest might be experiencing us — until Simard brought it up.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word gnarled in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.
If you want a better idea of how gnarled can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.
If you enjoy this daily challenge, try using multiple Words of the Day in a 50-word story that you submit to our Monthly Vocabulary Challenge.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
1. After looking closely at the image above (or at the full-size image), think about these three questions:
2. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)
3. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.
Each Monday, our collaborator, Visual Thinking Strategies, will facilitate a discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time by paraphrasing comments and linking to responses to help students’ understanding go deeper. You might use their responses as models for your own.
4. On Thursday afternoons, we will reveal at the bottom of this post more information about the photo. How does reading the caption and learning its back story help you see the image differently?
by Ruhiya Rohan Gupta, Marketing Manager at Coursera
At Coursera, we believe learning is the source of human progress. Our mission is to try and bring the best learning to every corner of the world. We are proud to share this commitment with learning leaders across the globe, and to honor those who’ve exemplified this commitment throughout their lives and careers.
The power of learning is vividly exemplified in the life of Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, also known as Babasaheb Ambedkar, who was an Indian jurist, economist, politician and social reformer. An iconic leader in India’s independence struggle, Ambedkar rose from one of the most disadvantaged communities in India.
Born on 14 April 1891, in a community which was historically denied the right to education, Ambedkar went on to earn two master’s degrees and two doctorate degrees in the fields of economics, political science and law.
Dr. Ambedkar was the principal architect of the Indian Constitution, and became independent India’s first law minister. He also wrote a biography of Gautam Buddha and was a fierce advocate for the rights of marginalized communities in India. Throughout his life, he stressed the importance of education as a path of upliftment and progress.
Coursera is celebrating the spirit and mission of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar—who said that “cultivation of mind should be the ultimate aim of human existence”— by sharing a special opportunity to save on your learning this Ambedkar Jayanti.
Choose from our specially curated collection of courses and get 50% off a course.
This collection features the most in-demand courses on Coursera. Enroll today!
Technical interviews allow you to showcase your knowledge and skills to prospective employers. They can be exciting, knowing that you’re that much closer to a job offer if you do well. They can also be intimidating — especially if you’ve never done one before or struggled with them in the past. But don’t worry. We’re here to help.
Below, we’ve outlined everything you’ll need to know to ace your next technical interview, including preparation, practice, and tips for impressing your interviewer. Read on for the full guide or jump to a specific section using the table of contents below.
What is a technical interview?
Technical interviews are a part of the hiring process for tech professionals. This process also includes phone screenings and in-person interviews, but the assignments you complete during technical interviews help interviewers evaluate your skills.
Assignments vary by company, but common tasks include:
Debugging existing code
Building a small project
Adding a feature to an existing code base
Explaining the design and architecture of a technical problem
While you’ll likely be asked to solve a problem, don’t worry too much about getting it right. Interviewers are typically more interested in your thought process than your solution.
How to prepare for a technical interview
Preparation is the key to a successful technical interview. You might not know what your assignment will be, but there are several steps you can take to ensure that you’re equipped for anything. Plus, your interviewer is bound to be impressed by your readiness.
By the time you have your technical interview, you’ve probably already spoken with the company’s recruiter or hiring manager. Feel free to ask them questions about what you should expect or the technologies used by the team you’ll be joining.
Master your programming languages
You can usually use your preferred programming language for the technical interview, and knowing its ins and outs will help you make a good impression.
Mastering your programming language will allow you to give the assignment your full attention instead of wasting time figuring out syntax. Plus, you might get the chance to wow your interviewer with a lesser-known feature or method.
It’s also worth taking the time to learn data structures and algorithms. Not only will this make your coding more efficient, but it’ll also deepen your understanding of the concepts employed in your technical interview.
Practice with projects and coding challenges
Theoretical knowledge will only take you so far. Completing coding challenges and projects will help instill the skills you’ll use in your new career. Plus, the more you practice, the faster you’ll become. Imagine how impressed your interviewer will be when you’ve efficiently solved the problem in half of the allotted time.
As you complete your projects, take note of how you approached the problems you encountered. Taking the time to analyze your approach helps develop your problem-solving ability and improve your capacity for technical presentations.
You could also practice with technical interview courses. Our Technical Interview Practice with Python, Java, and JavaScript courses cover advanced knowledge and skills, with practice problems to help you nail your next interview.
Memorize a story that illustrates your skill
At some point during your technical interview, you may be asked about your prior experience. Having a story readily available will help illustrate your familiarity with the knowledge and skills required for the position.
Use the notes you took while completing a project to create an outline and commit it to memory. Then, test it out on people. Share the story with your friends until you’re able to tell it without any stammering or pauses. This will help you sound confident during your technical interview, and being able to succinctly describe the problems you encountered and your solutions will demonstrate your expertise.
Other preparation tips
The tips listed above will help ensure that you’re fully equipped for your next technical interview. Still, sometimes it’s not what you say but how you say it. Check out these tips from our Curriculum Developers for more advice on how to prepare for a technical interview.
How to pass a technical interview
After taking all the steps to ensure that you’re ready to put your best foot forward, it’s time to take your technical interview. Technical interviews can occur both in-person or remotely. If it’s in-person, you may be asked to write your code on a whiteboard. If it’s remote, you might use a code editor.
Regardless of where it’s held, there are several steps you can take to make sure your technical interview is a success.
Understand the problem
Taking the time to understand the problem will make or break your interview. Too often, candidates rush in and start coding. Don’t be afraid to talk through it aloud.
Also, feel free to ask questions. It’s better to clarify any confusion at the beginning than when you’re halfway through your solution. Inquire about edge cases, intended program behaviors, error handling — anything that might occur to you. Not only will this show your critical thinking skills, but it’ll also illustrate your openness to feedback.
Explain your approach
Again, interviewers are primarily concerned with your thought process. Here’s your chance to give them a look.
Generating a step by step process you can explain aloud
Explaining your approach allows interviewers to better understand how you go about tackling a problem. Daniel describes how, despite his solution not being perfect, explaining his approach gave him a leg up in a technical interview with Google.
Don’t stop explaining, even when you run into a problem. Talking through it will help you organize your thoughts and find a solution. Plus, your interviewer is much more likely to give you a hand if you’re already engaged in conversation.
Optimize your solution
Going back to optimize your solution is a great way to display your attention to detail. Tidy up your code. Make sure you’re not using complicated functions for a problem that can be solved with your language’s basic features. If you’re familiar with Big O notation, discuss it with your interviewer.
Technical interview questions and answers
Certain positions require specific languages, and some technical interviews will test your capacity with them. Below, we’ve compiled a list of interview questions covering the basic and advanced features of some of the most popular programming languages:
Technical interview prep courses
If you have a strong foundation in Python, Java, or JavaScript but still need help learning their advanced features, check out our Skill Paths. Each Skill Path comes with more tips and tricks to help you nail your next technical interview:
With the tips and resources provided above, you’ll be sure to pass your next technical with flying colors. We wish you the best of luck in your interview, and your new career!
There is currently “a roiling debate in education, about how and even whether to measure the academic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the nation’s children — and how to describe learning gaps without stigmatizing or discouraging students and families,” Dana Goldstein writes.
Are you aware of this debate? How does it apply to you? Do you think you have learned significantly less this past year than you might have if the pandemic had never happened? As you answer, consider “learning” to make up not just the skills and content you are introduced to in school, but also what you learn outside of school.
Studies continue to show that amid the school closures and economic and health hardships of the past year, many young children have missed out on mastering fundamental reading and math skills. The Biden administration has toldmost states that unlike in 2020, they should plan on testing students this year, in part to measure the “educational inequities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.”
But others are pushing back against the concept of “learning loss,” especially on behalf of the Black, Hispanic and low-income children who, research shows, have fallen further behind over the past year. They fear that a focus on what’s been lost could incite a moral panic that paints an entire generation as broken, and say that relatively simple, common-sense solutions can help students get back up to speed.
“This isn’t a lost generation,” said Kayla Patrick, a policy analyst at the Education Trust, a national advocacy group focused on low-income students and students of color. “They just need extra support — in many cases, the support they probably needed before the pandemic, like tutoring.”
Others go further, arguing that regardless of what terminology is used, standardized testing to measure the impact of the pandemic is unnecessary or even actively harmful. Voices as prominent as the former New York City schools chancellor, Richard Carranza, and the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state’s largest educators’ union, have encouraged parents to opt their children out of state tests during the pandemic. “We do not want to impose additional trauma on students that have already been traumatized,” Mr. Carranza said.
The piece continues:
Jesse Hagopian, a Seattle high school teacher and writer, said testing to measure the impact of the pandemic misses what students have learned outside of physical classrooms during a year of overlapping crises in health, politics and police violence.
“They are learning about how our society works, how racism is used to divide,” he said. “They are learning about the failure of government to respond to the pandemic.”
Mr. Hagopian said he believed that “learning loss” research was being used to “prop up the multi-billion-dollar industry of standardized testing” and “rush educators back into classrooms before it’s safe to do so.”
Students, read the entire article, then tell us:
What is your reaction to this debate? Do you think you, personally, have experienced learning loss this past year? If so, what do you think you would have learned if not for the pandemic? If not, why not?
Would you answer the questions above differently for other students you know well, like your siblings or close friends? Do you think the age of the student makes a difference in how the past year has affected the learning experience?
Are there things you learned this year that you would not have without the pandemic and its disruption of normal life? What did you learn, and how valuable is that knowledge to you, if so?
Do you agree with the Seattle high school teacher quoted above who says that testing to measure the effects of the pandemic misses what students have learned during a year of overlapping crises in health, politics and police violence, such as “how our society works, how racism is used to divide” and how the U.S. government responded to the pandemic? If so, how valuable are those “real life” lessons to you?
Do you think standardized testing to measure the effects of the pandemic is “unnecessary or even actively harmful” this year — or, do you think schools need to administer those tests to see where students stand? Will you be taking standardized tests this spring?
If you do feel that you have experienced learning loss this year, how should your school respond to that? What do you think the best way to catch up might be?
What do you need from school right now? What do you think you and other students your age will need when you return to full-time in-person learning, if you haven’t already? Why?
Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
