Course format comparison
Online PDC vs in-person PDC: which should you choose?
Choose an online PDC when you need flexibility and want to apply the course to your own place over time. Choose an in-person PDC when concentrated group learning and direct experience of a teaching site matter more. Neither format is automatically better: curriculum, tutor access, design practice and assessment matter more than the delivery label.
Online and in-person PDCs at a glance
Flexible scheduling, repeated access to material and time to observe your own context. It requires reliable technology, self-direction and a steady study rhythm.
Immersive discussion, practical activities and shared observation. It requires fixed dates, travel, accommodation planning and sustained energy during an intensive course.
Compare the factors that change the experience
Online courses may combine recorded material, live tutorials and written feedback. In person, questions can arise naturally during group and field work. Check the actual tutor-contact promise in either format.
Online learners can investigate their own home, community or land across seasons. In-person learners share one immediate site, but a brief visit cannot reveal every seasonal condition.
Both formats can assess a real design. Ask whether work is reviewed by a tutor, whether revision is possible and whether the final design is more than a participation exercise.
Online study spreads effort across weeks or months. An intensive in-person course compresses teaching and group work, often leaving reading or project development outside taught hours.
In-person cohorts build quick shared momentum. Online cohorts can include wider places and perspectives, but community needs deliberate facilitation rather than a discussion board alone.
Compare tuition, travel, accommodation, meals, time away from work, technology, materials and any separate assessment or certificate fee.
Questions to ask any provider
- How are the stated 72 hours counted?
- Who teaches and who reviews the final design?
- How quickly can learners obtain meaningful tutor help?
- Which practical activities are required, and where can they be done?
- What happens if illness, caring work, travel or connectivity interrupts study?
- What is included in the total price?
- Who issues the certificate, and what claims are made about it?
How the two Mă-Kè routes differ
Mă-Kè’s Online PDC follows a recommended 16-24 week pathway, allowing learners to revisit material and develop a documented design in their own context with assessment and tutor feedback. The in-person PDC is a 14-day experience at Vila Pinheiro in Central Portugal, where shared observation, discussion and practical work use the living site as teaching evidence.
Both preserve the complete eleven-module, 72-hour curriculum and require a final design. Availability, dates, price and what is included should be checked on the relevant course page before making plans.
Where this material comes from
This comparison is grounded in Mă-Kè’s formal Online PDC and In-person PDC documentation. It separates the strengths of a delivery format from the quality of a particular provider: a format cannot compensate for thin curriculum, absent tutor support or unclear assessment.