Learning in Portland

A hybrid course blends regularly scheduled, face-to-face classroom meetings with significant online coursework and interaction. For students at the OSU Portland Center at Pioneer Square, the in-person classroom sessions emphasize engaged, active learning while the online components offer guided learning activities and interaction that add flexibility to fit your personal schedule.

A portion of your instruction and assignments will be presented in a traditional classroom, and the remainder will be delivered online. Your instructor will provide details regarding what coursework will be required in class and what work will be required when online.

Hybrid courses are designed to give you the opportunity to engage with course material both individually and in group settings. It’s a “best of both worlds” approach that pairs the flexibility of online study with the face-to-face learning experiences many students crave.

Oregon State is a nationally ranked leader in online and hybrid education, meaning you can rest assured that the quality and effort that goes into designing and teaching hybrid courses is of the highest caliber.

You’ll not only have access to a variety of online resources through OSU Ecampus, but you’ll also benefit from a host of on-site support services at the OSU Portland Center. Those services include:

• Academic advising
• Tutoring
• One-on-one meetings with faculty
• Group work
• Networking
• Workshops

Hybrid courses are designed for students who:

• are interested in active and participatory learning, both in a traditional classroom and online.
• have work and/or family obligations and need the flexibility of online learning to reduce their commute to site-based class sessions.
• wish to have the benefits of regular face-to-face contact with the instructor and other students, instead of undertaking a solely distance education experience.

Anyone who has been admitted to OSU and meets the individual prerequisites for a particular class can enroll in a hybrid course.

The hybrid learning experience enables you to learn alongside faculty and classmates, both in person and online, while also working independently. In the face-to-face classroom setting, you’ll work closely with the instructor and the students.

The online learning activities tend to provide a bit more of an independent environment, but Oregon State’s online learners often say they experience just as much interaction among classmates and instructors as they did in previous on-campus classes. These online interactions usually take place in class discussion boards and occasionally through the use of video conferencing software (e.g. Zoom, Google Hangouts, Webex) for group work collaborations.

Yes, Oregon State’s hybrid courses meet identical learning outcomes as OSU courses that are delivered 100 percent in person and those delivered fully online. Your transcripts will not reflect any differences for taking hybrid courses.

You will need regular access to a computer, the internet and your Oregon State email account in order to successfully participate in both the online and face-to-face components of hybrid courses.

If you’d like to know what hardware and software we recommend, use our quick-and-easy computer check to see if the device you are currently using meets the minimum requirements needed for OSU’s online hybrid courses.