BENEFIT Activities

In addition to lessons, assigned readings, and online resources, the BENEFIT course includes a variety of activities to enhance your overall learning experience and allow you to practice and apply what you learn. Activities include the following, in order of increasing complexity:

• Exercises (Self-study or Optional)
• Readings
• Assignments
• Labs
• Projects
• Quizzes

BENEFIT activities introduce skills, build on concepts, and deepen your capabilities, helping you to gain literacy and achieve fluency in IT. Because each lesson builds on previous material, it is important for you to work through all the activities in the order assigned on each Activities page.

You will learn about concepts in the lessons and reading assignments, practice what you have learned in assignments, exercises, and labs, and then work on projects that challenge you to think and apply what you have learned.

Exercises

BENEFIT has two types of exercises: self-study exercises and optional exercises.

Self-study Exercises

Self-study Exercises correspond to the assigned readings from the Fluency text. You will benefit by working through the self-study exercises in order to assess your understanding of the material before you begin the assignments or labs.

Self-assessment is especially important in a course such as this one where you will studying without the guidance of an instructor. See the example Self-study Exercise sidebar.

Optional Exercises

Optional practice exercises are designed to provide additional practice before labs or to help you understand important concepts. Links are provided nearby to answers for most of these exercises.

READINGs

Readings are assigned for each lesson's content. Some chapters of Fluency will be appropriate for more than one lesson, and so will be listed more than once. The purpose of the text readings is to provide you with more background; lessons will not necessarily cover every point made in the textbook chapters assigned as reading. Some important concepts may be covered twice between the readings and the lessons. Redundancy is important, because it is difficult to absorb a concept simply by reading about it once and then moving on. Tip: Much of the instruction in this course is hands-on-training. QuickStart will give you background and syntax for the programming assignments in Unit II. Articles on the Web are also assigned throughout the course.

Assignments

Several lessons have assignments that give you experience exploring the concepts learned in the Lessons. Assignments are provided largely for practice, hands-on exposure to skills, and increased understanding of concepts necessary to complete the projects and study for quizzes.

Labs

Labs are more in-depth and hands-on than assignments. Labs are designed to guide you step-by-step through useful tasks in order to build specific skills. They give you practical experience applying the concepts you are beginning to grasp. After the lab, you can compare your solution with the example solutions given. Labs are assigned in most Lesson Parts. Labs give you practice in skills and concepts you will need in order to complete the projects.

Projects

Each Unit—I, II, or III—has its own project that spans all the lessons in the unit. As you work on the projects, you will coordinate information and skills with respect to the multiple dimensions of the project and make overall judgments and decisions that take all such information into account. The projects will help you to integrate your new knowledge in such a way that the problem-solving process becomes a solid foundation for lifelong learning of IT—no matter how much IT grows and changes. Tip: Consult Fluency for guidance during projects.

Quizzes

The BENEFIT course has eleven quizzes, which include a combination of multiple-choice and true-or-false questions that cover topics in the lessons and textbooks, and may also involve programming code from the labs. You will take the quizzes after you have completed all other activities for each lesson. You won't be asked questions that require you to dredge up obscure information from the readings. Instead, focus your efforts on key ideas and concepts.  The quiz questions will help you to assess your understanding of the readings and help you to succeed in applying what you have learned. You won't be asked questions that require you to dredge up obscure information from the readings. Instead, focus your efforts on key ideas and concepts.

Be aware of the following special considerations concerning quizzes:

• Online quizzes have no time limits.
• Partially-completed quizzes cannot be saved to finish later.
• Be sure to answer all questions; any questions left blank will be marked incorrect.
• Within minutes after submitting the quiz, you will receive your score and informative feedback for each incorrect answer.
• You must receive a passing score on all the quizzes in order to earn an Acknowledgement of Completion for the unit or course.

Continue to BENEFIT Lessons

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BENEFIT was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and developed by University of Washington Educational Outreach.

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