What is it like to learn online?
How does this work?
Typically, lesson materials such as lecture notes, readings and homework problems are accessed by students from within Penn State's course management system ANGEL. Where concepts are difficult or a particular point needs to be emphasized these materials have been enhanced by faculty to include rich examples, animations, movie or audio clips, interactive applets, or whatever is needed to help drive an important concept home.
You will more than likely have more interaction with faculty and other students using the course email and discussion boards than you would in a traditional classroom setting. Activities in some courses are set up such that students must work together, however, in all of our classes there is plenty of room for students to ask questions and receive the help they need to master the learning objectives at hand.
What online learning options are there?
The Department of Statistics is extending its traditional resident course offerings by taking advantage of new opportunities to learn online. Online learning might involve one of three options:
- Blended Learning - also referred to as a hybrid approach, this is the case where a traditional resident course where a portion of the learning experiences will take place online in addition to face-to-face classroom meetings. For instance, course lectures, notes, readings, activities and/or discussion groups might take place online and students would meet weekly in a lab setting to apply what was learned that week.
- Web Only - courses offerings available to resident campus students only where all of the course interactions take place online and there are no face-to-face classroom meetings.
- World Campus - many STAT courses are now offered through Penn State's World Campus. Most of these courses are related to the Online Graduate Certificate in Applied Statistics. Students from all over the world can register through World Campus and may also take advantage of the World Campus' Help Desk to help troubleshoot technical problems. This help desk is not available to help resident students.
This new online learning environment allows for the extension of course offerings to a much wider and more diverse audience. Courses may now combine Web Only and World Campus students which means that your classmates may located anywhere in the world!
How much time will I spend online each week?
To successfully complete courses students are expected to spend as much time as they would for a traditonal course. Some of this time involves being connected online and interacting with others or the materials for the course. However, as for any course, there is much that is done away from the computer; readings, homework problems and project work.
