Unlike many contemporary trends in online courseware, we do not abandon conventional modes of instruction. Rather we augment, extend, and refine what is traditional and what is known to work. We are not advocates of extensive group instruction nor of wholesale discovery learning though there are places where each of these is important. Thus, students will always find hardcopy texts and lecture notes in Stellar School courses. They will always have video instruction. They will still do some of their homework on paper albeit to be subsequently scanned into the computers for grading purposes.

While each course may have a primary textbook, the basic documents that define the course are the lecture notes. The lecture notes are presented with all of the Learning Concept Statement explicitly presented in a tabular format. When a student knows and understands all of the Learning Concept Statement of a course, that student will likely pass its examination.