Western Seminary Center for Lifelong Learning

  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size
Welcome to the Center for Lifelong Learning

Important Scheduling Changes for Fall 2012

Monday, 16 April 2012 07:48
E-mail Print PDF
For several years, distance education students have been able to enroll for the next semester shortly after the close of the previous semester. Effectively, this provided 12 CLL start dates each year, one per month and four for each of the three semesters.

Recent changes in federal regulations, however, mean that this will no longer be possible. Starting this fall, enrollments must fall within the published beginning and ending dates of each of our three semesters. With this new national standard, we must say a fond farewell to our early start dates.

So what does this mean for our students, particularly those who were anticipating enrolling for an early-fall semester start date?

  • There will be no early fall semester start dates. For distance education students the 16-week fall semester begins August 27th and ends December 15th.
  • CLL will offer an 8-week summer session from June 25th to August 18th for anyone who would like to enroll for a 2-hour CLL course. We are confident that students who need to use the summer months to advance your program can, with careful time management, complete their coursework in the 8 weeks.
  • All registrations for the summer session will need to be submitted on paper; please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

We know our students greatly value scheduling flexibility. Many times that is the reason students choose a CLL distance education course. Please know that we are working diligently with others in the seminary to provide as much scheduling flexibility as possible within the federal guidelines. You will see some of these efforts reflected on our WSCLL.net Start Dates page as we introduce students to “A”, “B” and “C” session scheduling options that will be in effect as of Fall 2012.

Please bear with us as we work through the implications of these changes. We will be updating the websites, our printed materials, learning centers, course syllabi and much more so it will take time to get everything in order. If you have questions in the meantime, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we will help in any way we can. We encourage you to return regularly to this site as it will be our primary – though certainly not exclusive - means for keeping you up to date on developments relating to distance education.

 

Integr@te to Become Primary Delivery System in Fall 2012 Semester

Thursday, 23 February 2012 16:19 James Stewart
E-mail Print PDF

stewartBeginning in the fall 2012 semester, Integr@te will become the primary delivery and resource system for Western's distance education courses. While we have anticipated the platform migration, the soon-coming changes to course scheduling make the timely delivery of course materials a necessity. Students must be able to access course content in the first week of each session to ensure compliance with federal guidelines.

Thankfully, over the past year we have been conducting a live test of the system to ensure that our current students would find it both a functional improvement over a DVD-only approach, and a useful learning platform. Responses have been gratifying. While there have been hiccups along the way - and there surely will be others in the future - the program has performed as well or better than we had hoped. Students are now able to access their courses immediately upon activiation and may view their first media content within minutes. That Integr@te incorporates advanced progress monitoring, scheduling support, Bible study tools, chat rooms, a news agregator and more is already establishing it as  the preferred content delivery platform of many of our students.

We anticipate that in the near future Integr@te will take on an even more important role in our distance education learning system; more on that to come. Please understand that we are prioritizing online course delivery in the fall and not abandoning our DVD ROM format. Students who lack consistent access to a high speed Internet connection may still request a free DVD ROM disk, and all CLL students will be able to purchase a DVD of their course for just $20.00.

While we understand that Internet access and computer systems do add to the cost of a student's program, it is hard to deny that educational success in the second decade of the second millennium requires an investment in technologies, just as we all expect to invest in text books and course materials. The cost to students of not having a solid computer platform and reliable high speed Internet access, however, is significant in terms of lost productivity and personal stress.Thankfully, the hardware expectations of our distance courses is minimal and easily satisfied with an netbook, laptop or desktop computer that can be acquired for less than the cost of a single credit hour.

If you have questions or concerns, please let us know. We will work with you in any way possible to help ensure a successful - and enjoyable - learning experience.

Last Updated on Thursday, 10 May 2012 15:12
 

Understanding Course Assignment Policies

Friday, 17 February 2012 14:37 James Stewart
Surveys of our distance education students have consistently identified flexibility as the most valued benefit of our program design. That is not by accident. Flexibility is both an institutional value of Western Seminary and a WSCLL program value that we seek always to protect in our continuing desire to address the complex scheduling needs of our students.

Still, the commitment to flexibility must yield when it conflicts with what is almost certainly the seminary’s primary educational value, the unfailing promotion of student learning. Those who have studied with CLL over several years have noticed that our courses have changed and now include recommended completion schedules and required, time-sensitive, progress reports that provide what we believe are critical design elements to help students succeed.

We are now taking a careful look at student assignments. For example, should the recommended dates for student submissions become required dates? If so, should late submissions be penalized? Will providing more structure to the submission of assignments significantly improve learning or will it simply reduce flexibility and make it more difficult for time-challenged students to take CLL courses? These questions reflect the unfortunate reality that some students – still a significant minority - wait until the last week of the course to submit groups of assignments, or even delay until the course end date has passed.

Read more...
 

WSCLL Mentor Login