Faced with a world increasingly geared toward the Internet, the College of General Studies is stepping up to the plate by adding more advanced online courses to its curriculum.
Penn Advance, Penn's online learning program, was introduced by CGS in 1998. The program allows advanced high school students, CGS students and, more recently, full-time Penn students to take classes entirely online.
There are currently only two course options - Forensic Anthropology and Academic Writing and Research Design in the Arts and Sciences - but plans for the development of new programs are well underway, executive director of CGS Kristine Billmyer said.
According to Billmyer, CGS did away with its outdated online curriculum last year and spent the last 12 months remodeling the courses in a quest for "academic excellence." This year, CGS developed "four or five courses completely from scratch," she added.
One of these new programs is a course on world music that was launched last summer, which fits well in an online format, Billmyer says.
"There is a flow established within the lecture," she added. Using the online structure, students could hear the professor talking, see the outline and hear the music, all while carrying on side conversations with the TA and their other classmates.
"I'm very excited about the direction that CGS is headed," said SAS Dean Rebecca Bushnell. "CGS has really become the place for experimenting with new ways of thinking about teaching and offering innovative educational programs."
Despite the push to expand online opportunities, SAS itself is less certain of the benefits of online learning.
"There is a lot of fascination with the technology but less . clear evidence of educational benefits," director of Academic Affairs Kent Peterman said. He argued that often online education is just an elaborate attempt to reproduce the interactions available in the classroom.
On the other hand, Peterman explained that the College uses some fundamental aspects of distance learning to enhance the classroom experience.
Many faculty members use Blackboard and other online strategies to engage students outside the confines of the classroom and to make sure students are prepared to discuss material in a recitation setting, he said.
"It's not the same as the live in-classroom experience," said Bushnell. "But I think that new technologies can bring a lot to enhancing the way we teach."
For CGS, however, online courses provide an essential and very effective "learning platform and model," said Billmyer.
She added that above all, Penn Advance serves to "promote the development of knowledge, the sharing of different world perspectives and the coming together to build a solution among people and partners in different parts of the world."
"I think if we were having a chat with our founder Ben Franklin he would give us the thumbs up," said Billmyer. "This is a really exciting time for us to be at Penn."
