Teaching Engineering Courses In An Off Campus Environment

This paper describes a new off-campus graduate program in environmental engineering that is offered through Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Courses are offered to working professionals on a weekly basis in Springfield, IL, located 200 miles from the university’s main campus. The paper notes several key differences between teaching styles and effectiveness in this off-campus program when compared to that in a more traditional on-campus setting. These differences include that the instructors must be consciously aware of additional job-related constraints imposed on their students, that students tend to have a higher level of expectation with regard to content and delivery, and that additional time and effort must be invested by the instructor in order to create an effective learning experience for remote students.