TESC online courses vs guided study

[Ladyplf]

It depends on the course. I am retaking a course as guided study this semester that I first took as online. It was much more challenging as an online course.

When taking an online course you might have written assignments, forum postings, replies, reading assignments, and even videos to watch depending on the course; not to mention exams. That's a lot of work, especially if you are taking several online courses at once.

This semester I'm taking the same course as guided study and it's a breeze. The assignments are due every week instead of every other week but the workload is lighter because there are not as many questions per written assignment as there were online. I read my textbook do my assignments and I'm done. There are no forum postings to worry about mid week, no forum replies to remember, and no worry about what to reply when your classmates all post pretty much the same answer or when the answer has nothing to do with what the assignment asked for.

One good thing about online courses is that you get to interact with other students who may have more insight into a subject than you do. Also you can sometimes gauge the caliber of the other students' work from their discussion postings and then adjust your own work accordingly.