One of the things not mentioned, and maybe it is unique to my personality, is that I often don't like the exercises given in courses and come up with my own. If something is obvious and intuitive when hearing the concept, it is usually enough to internalize it. But if something is vague, I like to write some code and experiment with the concept to see how things interact.
MOOCS too often penalize you for not doing their exercises that don't always provide that much value and don't credit you for exploring other concepts further.
Additionally, when you have questions, office hours, message forums, Slack channels, and external sources (youtube, other courses, blog articles) are good sources.
Yeah - but it's on the student to seek out those additional resources, just like it is at College for students to seek out extra textbooks, use office hours etc.
Ultimately, it just comes down to how much the student wants to learn the material and MOOC's are just another helpful tool to do so.
MOOCS too often penalize you for not doing their exercises that don't always provide that much value and don't credit you for exploring other concepts further.
Additionally, when you have questions, office hours, message forums, Slack channels, and external sources (youtube, other courses, blog articles) are good sources.