Thread Rating:
  • 10 Vote(s) - 4.6 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
The official guide to courses by Straighterline, Study, et al: We want YOUR input!
(10-02-2020, 08:18 AM)LongRoad Wrote: Provider: Sophia
Course: Public Speaking
Course content: Like a few of the courses, there are no videos. It is all PDFs that Sophia provides
Final exam format: Multiple choice. I think that there were fewer than 30 questions. A Touchstone (the second speech) has to be done, too.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: I'm not sure that I like the way questions are asked in this course. While I think that the questions are worded in such a way as to see if you understand the material - as opposed to being able to search a PDF document during the test - I found some of them to be unclear. IMHO, the questions were more confusing than searching for depth of understanding.
Time taken on course: It's not a tough course, but because of life getting in the way, I asked for, and was granted, a 30-day extention.
Familiarity with subject before course: While I had been a member of Toastmasters, the material was different in this course. I would probably have passed - barely - the final without reading the PDFs.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: If you don't like speaking in public, THIS is the course for you. Know your subject, NOT your speech. Practice a bit before the mirror when brushing your hair or teeth. Try it about 5 times. Then, film. You've got your camera in the Selfie mode, so it's just like talking to yourself in the mirror. The hardest part for me was uploading the darn things! (There were two speeches.) Whatever your topic is, find some aspect to be urgent about it. Gardening? "Plant your bulbs NOW!" Talking about how to change your car's oil? "Check it NOW!" When you do your second (which is a repeat of the first) speech, add an chart or something, and practice including it in your speech. My feedback from my instructor was specific and helpful after both speeches.


Update — Public Speaking now requires 4 Touchstones.  1 is basically an outline for a special occasion speech. No speech required.   2 is a set up with sources for an informative speech.  (Reminded me of a research paper outline).  3 is writing an actual pursuasive speech and 4 are the corrections.  NOTE: it is taking up to 12 days per touchstone to grade...........
Reply
Brick 
Provider: Sophia.org
Course: Introduction to Business
Course content: Lessons are presented in both video and text format. PDF of text for an entire unit can be downloaded and read separately. Lessons are really just short summaries, not what I would consider an actual "lesson". Text is really just a transcript of one instructor's videos. I'm a relatively fast reader, so only watched one video lesson, just to see what it was like. No external content. Nothing else to buy. Consisted of four units covering four broad business topics.
Final exam format: 25 multiple choice questions. Open book. Not proctored.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: There was perfect alignment across questions on challenges, unit milestones, and final milestone.
Time taken on course: About 4 hours, because I took the time to actually read the the lessons, answer all three challenge questions per lesson, and do the practice milestones. If I had simply blazed the course, doing the bare minimum, it would have taken less than two hours.
Familiarity with subject before course: Extremely familiar with the subject matter. I probably would have scored the same on the final milestone if I had taken it cold, outside the context of the rest of this course.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: It's an intro to business courses, so it's very basic material. For somebody with zero business experience, it's a pretty good survey of business topics. The lessons aren't particularly well written, in my personal opinion, but they're good enough to communicate the concepts. Pay particular attention to definitions. As mentioned in previous reviews of this course, many of the quiz questions are worded in a very vague and confusing manner, with the potential for more than one technically correct answer. I also noted over a dozen instances of the "correct" answer to a question being flat out, verifiably wrong. The multiple choice questions are in serious need of a quality review. I came for the quick and cheap business credits, and left with a potential future business idea, because this makes it look really easy to get stuff approved for ACE credit recommendation.  Big Grin
1-10 Difficulty level: 1-2 for anybody with business/management experience; 3-4 for somebody without such experience.
In progress: TESU: BS CIS | Coursera: Google IT Support
Completed: TESU: BSAST Nuclear Engineering Technology (2004)
[-] The following 1 user Likes TopHatWombat's post:
  • Pikachu
Reply
Provider: Study.com
Course: Math 108: Discrete Math
Course content: Videos/text
Final exam format:  100 multiple choice questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The final exam contents felt very unfamiliar compared to the practice exam/quizzes.
Time taken on course: Not completely sure. Crammed most of it in about 48 hours. Don't do this.
Familiarity with subject before course:  So-so
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This class is very heavy on both stats and logic. The final I took felt very logic-heavy, while the course & practice exam felt like it focused more on stats. If you haven't taken any statistics course and you're relatively new to programming, then this is going to be difficult. I had some familiarity with both, having taken a number of prior programming courses + 2 courses with statistics. Still, there were quite a few questions where I had to guess, because I wasn't sure what the answer was. Spend a bit more time concentrating on the (computer) logic, if you can. Final exam was still within 15% of practice exam score, though.
1-10 Difficulty level: 6 or 7
In progress:
TESU - BA Computer Science; BSBA CIS; ASNSM Math & CS; ASBA

Completed:
Pierpont - AAS BOG
Sophia (so many), The Institutes (old), Study.com (5 courses)
ASU: Human Origins, Astronomy, Intro Health & Wellness, Western Civilization, Computer Appls & Info Technology, Intro Programming
Strayer: CIS175, CIS111, WRK100, MAT210
[-] The following 3 users Like rachel83az's post:
  • AnandB, Pikachu, spohara
Reply
(12-18-2021, 07:00 PM)rachel83az Wrote: Provider: Study.com
Course: Math 108: Discrete Math
I'm not looking forward to this one. It's my last SDC course.
Purdue Global, BS IT 

Method:
  • Sophia (13 courses) 
  • Study.com (5 courses
  • W3Schools (PHP Certification)
  • Purdue Global ExcelTrack (2 terms)
Reply
(12-18-2021, 07:40 PM)ClockworkHammer Wrote:
(12-18-2021, 07:00 PM)rachel83az Wrote: Provider: Study.com
Course: Math 108: Discrete Math
I'm not looking forward to this one. It's my last SDC course.

If you're doing the Purdue Global degree in your signature, take your time. It'll be fine. If you've already taken Computer Architecture and Statistics, you know most of the course already. If you haven't, you might want to (re)familiarize yourself with those topics.
In progress:
TESU - BA Computer Science; BSBA CIS; ASNSM Math & CS; ASBA

Completed:
Pierpont - AAS BOG
Sophia (so many), The Institutes (old), Study.com (5 courses)
ASU: Human Origins, Astronomy, Intro Health & Wellness, Western Civilization, Computer Appls & Info Technology, Intro Programming
Strayer: CIS175, CIS111, WRK100, MAT210
Reply
Provider:
Study.com
Course:
Computer Science 306: Computer Architecture

Course content: How is the material presented? Videos? Text? External content? Do you have to buy/have other materials?
I originally did the course material back in March (so some details might be hazy). It was a mix of videos and some text material along with some Logisim content, which at the time of reviewing the material I wasn't aware that the assignment requires you to use Logisim - so when viewing the Logisim content, make sure to follow along and understand what you are doing!

When I tried doing the assignment (back in March) the link to Logisim was broken, when I found a working link to download it and tried reviewing the Logisim lessons (for example https://study.com/academy/lesson/flip-fl...-uses.html), I was really frustrated because I would follow it step-by-step but I couldn't get them to work, so I gave up on the course. Looking back, I think my case was due to either accidentally having the direction of the gates or the number of data bits were incorrect.

With TESU dropping the course at the end of the year, I tried doing the assignment again, spent at least 6+ hours a day for a week and finally got the assignment completed and working.

Final exam format: How many questions? Multiple choice? Essay? Both? Something else?
100 questions, multiple choice for the final proctored exam.

Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Have you seen the information before in the course, or was it a total curve ball?
I took the practice exams a few times and scored around the 60s, completed the final with a 66 - so I felt the practice exams is on par with the final exam.

Time taken on course: Hours? Weeks? Days?
Multiple weeks, perhaps at least a month or two total with the on and off research from trying to learn Logisim after giving up and then playing with the idea of maybe picking the course back up a few times.

Familiarity with subject before course: Never heard of it before taking the course, Low, medium, high, I do this every day. How would you have scored on the final with no preparation?
Low.

Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:
Make sure you learn Logisim. I can't stress this enough.

1-10 Difficulty level:
10.
In Progress:
TESU:
BA Computer Science (117/120)
SoonCapstone

Completed: AS in Mathematics, Certificate in Computer Information Systems

TESU: 6 Credits (SOS-110, CMP-3540) - 2023
Coursera: 24 Credits (IBM Data Analysis & Visualization Foundations, SAS Advanced Programmer, Google Data Analytics) 2022-2023
Study.com: 27 Credits (Management Information Systems, Systems Analysis & Design, Database Management, Computer Architecture, Discrete Mathematics, Geometry, Data Structures, Intro to Operating Systems, Calculus) 2020-2022
InstantCert.com: 3 Credits (American Government) - 2022
CSMLearn.com: 3 Credits - 2021
Sophia.org: 46 Credits - 2020
Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service 11 Credits - 2020
B&M College: 105.34 Credits - 2010
[-] The following 2 users Like AllThose299s's post:
  • Pikachu, spohara
Reply
Provider: edX.org
Course: Computer Science Fundamentals MicroBachelors
Course content: This MicroBachelors is composed of 3 courses:
Introduction to Networking
Basics of Computing and Programming
Computer Hardware and Operating Systems
You can take the courses in every order.
Each course is composed from 5 to 7 modules, each module has one video that goes from 35 minutes to 75 minutes long, 3 questions (where you get your points with unlimited trials), and 1 proctored final exam, the proctored exams have from 12 to 20 questions, they use the same RPNow/PsiBrowser as Study.com
Final exam format: From 12 to 20 questions, Multiple choice, at least in Introduction to Networking, they repeated exactly the same questions as in the quizzes.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: I have seen the information before in U. of the People courses, but if you are new to the topics: Introduction to Networking has a lot of content in each video, a lot of terminology. Programming is done on Python, and Hardware has a lot of information, that I actually consider to be commong knowledge for people with even basic knowledge of computers.
Time taken on course: Maybe 12 hours per course, since I usually watch the videos two or three time times, as there are no additional resources. Nothing else at all.
Familiarity with subject before course:
Never heard of it before taking the course, Low, medium, high? Medium to high
How would you have scored on the final with no preparation? Maybe 30% to 60%
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: After getting everything in the quizzes, you need more than 50% in the final to pass the Hardware and the Networking courses, in the case of the Programming course, you have labs, that it´s actually a Python autograder, with the labs and the quizzes, you already passed with the minimum grade the Programming course, you also have unlimited tries with the autograder.
1-10 Difficulty level: 4-7

I actually won´t recommend it, since the content is so little, I wouldn´t pay that amount for just the videos, since you don´t even get the slides, I took it because I got the 90% scholarship for financial need. There´s the benefit of getting 3 credits for it, however it translates as COS-104, that I couldn´t found in the catalog.
Reply
Provider: Study.com
Course: History 108: History of the Vietnam War
Course content: Videos/text
Final exam format:  100 multiple choice questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Pretty well aligned. I did better on the final exam than I did on the practice test I took.
Familiarity with subject before course:  Not that much; I only passed ONE quiz with the preassessment test.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: As one might expect in a course about a foreign country, there are a lot of names that are unfamiliar to Westerners. It's not always easy to tell who's who. The weird military names don't help either. Otherwise, pretty easy stuff.
1-10 Difficulty level: 3 or 4, mainly for the names.

Provider: OnlineDegree.com
Course: History- Turning Points in Modern History (HS103)
Course content: Videos/text
Final exam format:  70 multiple choice questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: I thought the final exam questions were generally easier than the quiz questions.
Familiarity with subject before course:  Some moderate history knowledge.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: It's been said that, with OnlineDegree courses, you don't need to watch the "extra" videos. However, with the exception of the video about Antonie van Leeuwenhoek that seemed to be almost random, I felt the extra videos were actually chosen well and helped enhance my understanding. Extra videos mostly consisted of appropriate Crash Course History YT videos; these are pretty entertaining and now I want to watch the entire CC History series.
1-10 Difficulty level: 3
In progress:
TESU - BA Computer Science; BSBA CIS; ASNSM Math & CS; ASBA

Completed:
Pierpont - AAS BOG
Sophia (so many), The Institutes (old), Study.com (5 courses)
ASU: Human Origins, Astronomy, Intro Health & Wellness, Western Civilization, Computer Appls & Info Technology, Intro Programming
Strayer: CIS175, CIS111, WRK100, MAT210
[-] The following 1 user Likes rachel83az's post:
  • Zardoz
Reply
Provider: Study.com
Course: Bus 311 Project Management
Course content: 14 chapters with video presentation. The last chapter consists of flashcards to assist in the final exam. Each chapter has a number of lessons that require a Quiz. You should be passing each quiz with a 100% score (fairly easy to do if you open two screens and review your answers). No other material is required. I would have preferred having one instructor (on video) for the entire course, instead of the numerous instructions for each lesson; it results in an inconsistent flow of the material. 
Final exam format: The final score is dependent on 3 factors: Quiz scores, Assignment project(PowerPoint presentation) and Final exam. Each of these 3 factors is scored out of 100 points. Therefore, the highest score you can attain in the course is 300. I scored 100% on the quizzes, 77% on my Assignment project and 82% on my final exam, resulting in a Course Grade of 86%. The final exam consists of 100 questions. 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: My suggestion, after completing the lessons and quizzes, is to review the flashcards first. Then, take the Practice Final exam at least 3 or 4 times to get a sense of the questions. If you start scoring decently on the Practice Final exams, then you can take the Final exam. Your passing grade, on the final exam, will be determined by your grades in the quizzes (you should have 100% here) and the Assignment project. 
Time taken on course: It took me 2 months to complete because I left the course for about 3 weeks. I took too long to study for the final exam. I should have taken it sooner. 
Familiarity with subject before course: I was familiar with many of the topics in the course, having dealt with numerous projects in the past. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:
  1. Quiz: As suggested above, aim to get 100% on the quizzes (fairly easy)
  2. Assignment Project: Try to make an eye-popping design for your PowerPoint presentation (10-15 slides). Use the "Design" templates, in PowerPoint, to get good coloring. For your project, try to spend some time making an outline of your presentation. Then, ensure the slides flow based on your outline and are somewhat chronologically ordered with your project timeline. You should try to include the following in your presentation: pie chart for budget, Gantt chart for the timeline of your project, risk matrix for Risk Management plan. Include some quality assurance items and close the presentation with some good questions and answers. 
  3. Final exam: study for the final exam using the flashcards and the Practice final exams. The course will provide your passing grade based on the scores from your other quizzes and Assignment project. Remember, the final exam is 1/3 of your final grade. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 6
Reply
Provider: Study.com
Course: Math 108: Discrete Math

Course content: Text & Videos
Final exam format: 100 multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Have you seen the information before in the course, or was it a total curve ball?
The course covers a lot of different topics from logic, graphs, probability, trees, matrices and so on, so it makes it difficult to really remember if the final exam had a bunch of curve ball questions vs if some of the questions were just topics that failed to really pick up on.

I made the mistake of taking the practice exam only once and I got overconfident because I scored a 90% on it, but after taking the final, I feel that the practice exam just pulled questions from a pool of topics that really stuck with me and had I taken the practice exam a few more times I would have had a more realistic idea of how I actually did. Similar to rachel83az, my final was also within 15% from my practice exam.

Time taken on course: Hours? Weeks? Days? About 2-3 weeks on it.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:
The course covers a lot and as someone who ended up hating math in high school (because doing matrix algebra as the first class of the day as a freshman can do that to you) this is my feedback:
  1. This was a fun course.
  2. The parts that SDC does a good job on explaining will probably be the parts you will do good on or at least not struggle with much. For me it was Combinatorics, Graph Theory, Trees, Matrices, etc.
  3. The parts that SDC does a really poor job on will make you extremely frustrated and make you want to just completely give up on. For me part of the Recursion & Advanced Counting was probably the most frustrated I've ever been as far as the course chapter goes within SDC. It was equivalent to how I felt with the Computer Architecture assignment frustration.
  4. Where the discrete probability content could have excelled at for teaching probability of gambling, etc. It focuses a bit too much, e.g. chances of specific poker hands so you have to remember those specific details which if you don't gamble or play poker then it feels like you're wasting time. Sophia's statistics courses does a better job in my opinion on covering probability. The only reason I really focus on calling this out is the discrete probability chapter is the second longest chapter in the course. Graph Theory being the longest and the final will definitely cover either paths, circuits, etc but considering that chapter is the longest, it makes sense that it would.
  5. Make sure you've taken a couple math courses before trying this, I don't consider myself a math guy, the last math course I took at a B&M college was Intermediate Algebra (so not even College Algebra) and a math course that covered some logic and converting binary to decimal & hex, etc. But after taking the 5 different courses on Sophia before starting Discrete Math on SDC, if you are able to spend some time and focus on it then I think it's completely doable. Points 3 & 4 is still a mess however. Do take a practice exam a couple times.
  6. If SDC offered a Discrete Math 2 that focused a bit more on some interesting topics I would probably take it, I actually felt like they could have cut the discrete probability content in half and expanded more on the trees & matrices, I was actually a bit disappointed by how short they were in comparison.
1-10 Difficulty level: 5-6.
In Progress:
TESU:
BA Computer Science (117/120)
SoonCapstone

Completed: AS in Mathematics, Certificate in Computer Information Systems

TESU: 6 Credits (SOS-110, CMP-3540) - 2023
Coursera: 24 Credits (IBM Data Analysis & Visualization Foundations, SAS Advanced Programmer, Google Data Analytics) 2022-2023
Study.com: 27 Credits (Management Information Systems, Systems Analysis & Design, Database Management, Computer Architecture, Discrete Mathematics, Geometry, Data Structures, Intro to Operating Systems, Calculus) 2020-2022
InstantCert.com: 3 Credits (American Government) - 2022
CSMLearn.com: 3 Credits - 2021
Sophia.org: 46 Credits - 2020
Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service 11 Credits - 2020
B&M College: 105.34 Credits - 2010
[-] The following 2 users Like AllThose299s's post:
  • AnandB, spohara
Reply


Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Missing Straighterline credits on credly yc1981 2 79 Yesterday, 07:53 AM
Last Post: bjcheung77
  New Sophia Courses: Health, Fitness, and Wellness and Anatomy & Physiology II Lab LevelUP 7 371 03-23-2024, 03:16 AM
Last Post: Kab
  Current Study.com Coupon Codes pws 67 39,282 03-22-2024, 05:10 PM
Last Post: GoBroncos95
  calculating grade for study.com course Omece 9 1,472 03-20-2024, 08:49 PM
Last Post: bjcheung77
  Is there a list of which Sophia courses have touchstones? MaMichelle 7 6,789 03-16-2024, 06:45 PM
Last Post: bjcheung77
  Disappointed with Study.com (Discrete Mathematics) legenwait4itdary 6 600 03-08-2024, 08:41 PM
Last Post: bluebooger
  How to get ACE credits such as Sophia on official college transcript Student3452 18 4,863 03-08-2024, 01:34 AM
Last Post: Gumbeaux
Information New Sophia Courses: College Math and Chemistry MNomadic 67 10,391 03-07-2024, 11:22 PM
Last Post: Westslope Cutthroat
  TEEX Cyber Security Courses / non US residents BritStudent 6 545 03-03-2024, 02:15 AM
Last Post: FireMedic_Philosopher
Brick MAT150 - Straighterline - Final Exam riteshvpandya 2 261 02-26-2024, 11:31 PM
Last Post: riteshvpandya

Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)