Courses

What subjects are being offered?

The following courses will be offered to year 11 students in 2012. These courses will run subject to sufficient numbers choosing to enrol.

These courses are all 2unit Board of Studies developed, category A courses which can be included in the ATAR calculation. They are each divided into a Preliminary and HSC course over years 11 and 12.

More information on the content of each course should be available in your school course selection handbook. Alternatively more information is provided at the NSW Board of Studies website and also within our site.

Course requirements

There are no prerequisites to studying online courses. However for the courses delivered by the Online Education Centre the following apply. Students must be enrolled at a Catholic school in NSW. Students will be required to have access to a computer with an internet connection, these will generally be provided while the student is on their home school site. It is essential that the student has access to a reliable computer and the internet at home.Textbooks and other study materials will be provided as per existing home school arrangements. In some cases this requires students to purchase their own textbooks and resourses. Students will be required to participate in a number of workshop days where the teacher and fellow students meet at a central location. These take place in major regional centres (possibly the students home school) at least twice per year. These days are mandated as an essential component of the courses and attendance is required to complete course content.

Course costs

The online courses will be offered to students at a cost of $400 per course per year.

Students in the Maitland-Newcastle and Broken Bay Dioceses will need to check with their home school regarding costs as they may vary from the amount indicated above.

Please note that all courses have a non refundable $50 administration fee included in the cost. A number of courses have additional costs for the course materials which are provided.

What is involved in an online course?

The online delivery of our courses includes:

1. Weekly quizzes. These involve short questions that are answered online and deal with essential concepts in the course. Student responses to the quiz also act as a rollcall and attendance check, indicating that the students have logged onto the course website, at least once in the week.

2. Weekly lecture and tutorials sessions. These are an essential part of the teaching/learning process and involve students logging into a ‘live’ online lecture or tutorial discussion of course work for a one to one and a half hour session each week.

3. Weekly tasks. The course website and the course CDs, texts and booklets present a schedule of weekly readings and tasks throughout the course. The solutions to these tasks are also available. Some tasks are self assessed. Some require students to resubmit their attempts based on teacher feedback until a satisfactory level of mastery is attained. Students can seek help through email messages or during tutorial sessions. This is unquestionably the most important process in the online delivery of the courses.

4. Topic assignments. At the completion of each topic or unit, students may be required to submit for marking an assignment which will focus on the material from the preceding weeks tasks. The assignments will contain HSC examination style questions.

5. Formal assessment tasks. There are five formal tasks which combine to produce the Course Mark. These include tests, projects, essays and a final exam. A course assessment schedule on each course website will show the dates, content and value of each of these tasks.