Informatics Learning Principles & Course Content
The Informatics Specialty Courses are built upon a learner centered model that incorporates the best practices of teaching and learning in an online environment. We believe that this model focuses on students and faculty learning from each other. The faculty serves as guides to facilitate your learning by creating a learning environment that allows you to interact with content, fellow learners, and with the faculty. We use four research-based learning principles (extracted from The Case for Learner-Centered Education in On Course Newsletter to foster learner centered education:
- Active Involvement - Learning becomes deeper when students are actively engaged and spend more time on higher-level learning tasks.
- Social Integration - Learning is strengthened through peer and faculty interactions and collaborations.
- Self-Reflection - Learning is also strengthened by students through peer and faculty interactions and collaborations.
- Personal Validation - Learning is fostered when learners receive recognition and feedback from both instructors and their peers.
Our informatics courses are modularized so that we do a deep dive into content rather than surface learning with a new topic each week. Modules last between 3-4 weeks. You typically have four modules in a course over the semester.
We also provide outstanding instruction that is determined by your own background and experience. Instead of teaching through video lectures and narrated presentations, we provide learning guides to take you through the content of each course and how to achieve the learning outcomes. The learning guide is tailored for those who are new to the field and those that may already be practicing informatics. Based on your existing knowledge and familiarity with the topic at hand, each learner creates their own learning pathway to achieve course outcomes. Along the way, you are engaged in learning activities that scaffold your learning so that you can accomplish the objectives of each module. All learning activities and outcome assessments are built on real-world scenarios. These assessments help you to directly apply your knowledge to the role of an informatics specialist. We think of it as translating your knowledge into practice.