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Self-Paced Lessons

The interactive instructional components of our self-paced classes are called Lessons. Each Lesson is a guided, adaptive exploration of a sequence of problems students work through. Lessons are designed to assist students like a one-on-one session with a live instructor.

Working Through a Lesson

We believe that students learn by solving problems and discovering results for themselves. Our self-paced Lessons are based around that principle as well. Each Lesson is a short series of problems chosen for the student to work through. The Lesson follows the student through all of the steps to the problem. We reinforce the key ideas and connections in the Lesson, but we also make sure that it's the students who are making the discoveries.

Our carefully scripted interactive lessons have been designed to meet students at their level. Lessons adapt to student responses to offer the right approach. Oh, and they are smart and funny, too; the content they are delivering is written by the same curriculum developers that design all of our books and classes. (It takes 5 people about 20 hours to write a 10-minute Lesson!)

Saving Progress

Self-paced Lessons are saved automatically as you work. We'll remember your place in a Lesson if you need to take a break or something happens that disconnects you from the site (power outage, internet connection error, etc.). When you sign back in, all the progress you've made in every Lesson will be there. You can also go back and review your work in past Lessons you've completed at any time.

Grading Self-Paced Lessons

Self-paced Lessons are meant for instruction, so grading is based only on whether a student has completed the lesson. There are many paths through a Lesson, but you get to the end of the Lesson by learning the content, so you pass the Lesson. How wonderful is that?

Of course, after you finish the Lesson, the real work begins. You will move on to the remaining parts of your assignment where you get a chance to apply the principles that you've learned in the Lesson. Remember, you can go back and review the Lesson whenever you need.

More general information about grading can be found on the Grades and Documentation page.