Our Methods
- Integrated Online courses
- A personalized plan of study
- Weekly workshops on foundation skills
- Independent and group learning opportunities
- Classroom sessions are on an 8:1 ratio
- Vigorous, challenging and interactive teaching style
- Learning outside the classroom
- Internships and voluntary placement
- Meetings with faculty advisor
We believe that education should be alive; that true learning comes about when students have the support and the opportunity to put their learning to the test by getting out into the world - by trying things out. Our curriculum offers students the opportunity to do just that.
Integrated Studies
We bring classes together so that students have an opportunity to look at things from a variety of perspectives. Three mornings a week students come in and work with teachers to complete the are spent focused on these integrated courses, in some cases the students decide which courses to focus on for a semester. Many of these integrated courses are requirements for the completion of the OSSD.
Group Work
In our fast-paced society it is crucial that students learn to work together, we bring together ideas, practices, and principles of successful group interaction to assist groups to work together well.
Individual Work
The ability to focus, to bring your own ideas and abilities out into the world on your own is also an important learning skill. Students have opportunities to work on their own.
Experience
We create, and encourage students to take their learning outside the classroom. Students find opportunities to volunteer, find mentors, and do projects linking their studies to the world around us. This assists them to make sense of what they are learning, to make long-term life decisions, and to recognize what skills and personal abilities they wish to strengthen.
INSOTUS is pleased to be able to offer you an opportunity to study at your own pace and to provide the support you need, when you need it. These courses follow Ministry of Education curriculum and include all of the expectations and requirements to continue at your day school or at a post-secondary program. As such, these credits will have equal weight and consideration for your University and College applications.
How are our courses different from other online distance learning platforms?
INSOTUS Online consists of courses and/or full programs offered to students via the Internet. What we do differently though is deliver the material in two ways in order to maximize our ability to reach individual with individual needs. The following are the two modes of delivery:
- The standard mode of delivering an online education is with asynchronous learning where students sign onto the Internet at a time that is convenient to them. Course materials are available on the Internet and students send messages to their teacher and fellow students by e-mail or electronic bulletin board. Other course participants read and respond to these messages at a time convenient for them. With asynchronous learning students are usually given a deadline for completion of their course - for example, the end of the school year or the end of the semester. But students usually can proceed through their course more quickly if they wish and finish it before the deadline.
However INSOTUS also integrates a method of synchronous learning where students go to a physical classroom and interact with a real teacher before signing onto the Internet while in the classroom at some scheduled time. INSOTUS recognizes that sometimes it may be difficult to understand something without the help of a knowledgeable person-someone able to pinpoint what specifically the student is having problems with rather than relying on the student's ability to articulate what he/she is having problems with. It is for this reason that INSOTUS has included this component to its platform. Just as is the case with asynchronous learning, students receive course materials and messages, in real time, that is, when the materials and messages are sent, and can respond immediately. With synchronous learning, the pace at which students work is determined by the pace at which course materials are delivered; an individual course plan is developed with a schedule, objectives, completion dates and regular meeting times with your teacher.
With both types of delivery, students usually require a user name and password or other identifying information to access course materials on the Internet.
With most online distance learning programs, a distance education teacher reviews, marks and comments on the assignments that students submit via the Internet. We at INSOTUS ensure that there will be a teacher physically present at scheduled times where students will be required to attend unless they pass a proficiency test. Regardless of whether the teacher be real or virtual though, the educator will challenge, encourage, question and support students.