Online courses taught online begin and end on the same dates as the traditional classes taught at NATI ESL. The on-campus program offers 60 clock hours for each course, and this is the same for the online program. Students in the distance education program are part-time students, meaning they take one six-week course per session, meeting for 10 hours per week.
NATI ESL uses Microsoft Teams as its online learning management system. The curriculum has the same academic requirements as those courses taught in the traditional classroom environment. The difference is in how and where students and teachers meet and interact.
Synchronous real-time courses are delivered through regular class meetings, where professors and students are all online at the same time. During the scheduled class periods, each class member accesses the Microsoft Teams Meeting and joins the class online in a conversational mode with the instructor and other class members. In this mode, the students are presented notes, discussion questions, and group activities, and they interact with the instructor and other class members. Students also discuss the status of their assignments, read and discuss articles, complete projects, and take exams utilizing the Internet.
Registration
Students at North America Technical Institute ESL (NATI ESL) may register for online courses utilizing the Internet or by calling the Academic Office during regular business hours.
Attendance Policy
Students enrolled in the online program adhere to the same attendance policies as on campus. However, logging into the online class without active participation will not constitute official attendance. To be marked present, students enrolled in an online program at North America Technical Institute ESL (NATI ESL) will demonstrate daily and weekly attendance by completing one or more of the following actions as directed by the instructor:
- Actively participate in a scheduled synchronous class session.
- Submit a course assignment during class
- Take a quiz or an exam during class
These activities will be tracked automatically in Microsoft Teams.
Security
Many people might be concerned about information security when taking an online course. All student information is stored in a secure Microsoft Teams environment. Microsoft Team is secured by Microsoft. To access the Teams, a student or employee must have strong login credentials (username and password). According to Microsoft official website, “Microsoft Teams is built on the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 hyper-scale, enterprise-grade cloud, delivering the advanced security and compliance capabilities customers expect.” Source: Overview of security and compliance – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs.