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Anyone ever use any of "The Great Courses"?
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Hi Ladies,
Just wondering if any of you have ever used any of “The Great Courses” materials and if so, what was your experience? They can be very expensive to purchase, but many of them are available at my public library. I am thinking specifically of history and science courses.
Thanks!
Anne
I have used LOTS. And lots and lots. We love them. We have used many different kinds. They CAN be expensive–never EVER buy them full price–they ALWAYS have terrific sales–every single course goes on sale at least once a year.
We have used or have and are ready to use these:
How to Be a Superstar Student
Games People Play
Economics, 3rd Ed.
Legacies of Great Economists
Understanding Linguistics
History of the English Language
The Medieval World
What Are The Chances? Probability Made Clear
America and the New Global Economy
Art of Critical Decisionmaking (one we did not like)
Thinking Like an Economist
The Art of Public Speaking
Experiencing Hubble
Our Night Sky
Unexpected Economics
The Skeptic’s Guide to the Great Books
Your Deceptive Mind
Physics and Our Universe
The Art of Teaching
Art of Argumentation (another we did not like)
How Economies Rise and Fall (did not like, we returned it–prof turned out to be a Keynesian)
Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy
One GREAT thing about buying them is if you aren’t satisfied, you can return it and get something else. We’ve done this twice. 🙂
We have quite a few of them and really have enjoyed them…we used a couple of the math high school courses as extras which I am now selling, and then we did others. I like them because it got the girls used to lectures and note taking and they are super interesting. I bought most of mine when they were on sale. We did History of England Tudors to Stuarts, Italian Renaissance, History of Hitler’s Empire, Conservative Tradition, Building Great Sentences, Classics of British Lit, Life and Writings of C S Lewis, and one on Churchill. We liked them all. We did them as a family mostly. Did not do the science courses, not enough time.
Wow, thanks for all the responses! Sounds like these are worth looking into. Would you say that you could literally use them as a course of study, with supplementation with living books on the topic?
Yes. We do. We do add in living books and for some subjects, obviously, you need actual math-solving practice. I wouldn’t consider watching a math video series as a math credit, for instance. I’d still require my kids to do problems. But they are a great course or supplement. You can read reviews of specific courses/professors on the main Teaching Company site.
Like Bookworm said the math courses we used as supplements and the other courses as proper courses with other books added, and writing and narration rounding it out.
I think if you can get the ones you want second hand or when they have the sale they are well worth it.
How do you decide all the different things and when to use them over the course of time and how to supplement? Is this something that I will get better at the longer I homeschool? And how do you get your kids interested or do you have to require it until they want to learn it? I can just imagine the groans around here if I asked someone to watch a course! I would love to come live with y’all too. I would get so smart!! I get the great courses catalog and have seen things that I liked. Maybe I should have gotten them to put on the shelf for later 🙁
Linda & Michele,
Would I be crazy to buy the Great Tours: Greece and Turkey, from Athens to Istanbul for my dd11? She is traveling to Greece and Turkey with my husband and her grandparents in October following Paul’s missionary journeys. I would love for her to have more familarity than she currently does. We have studied ancient Greece, but it was in 2nd grade. They have other courses on the topic, but this one is more of a travelogue and I thought might work well.
Thoughts welcome.
Christie
Christie, I think it might be very enjoyable, but the lecturer is unlikely to focus on ONLY Christian history sites. I haven’t seen these ones myself, but I have watched a course by the lecturer (he also does the public speaking course on Great Courses) and we like him very much–good lecturer, great storyteller. He is one of those founts of fascinating info and stories. I think it could be a lot of fun, but then we are weird and nerdy. Will you all think I’m nuts if I confess that my dream after the kids are gone is to get about fifty of these courses and watch them with dh instead of TV? Or that my kids have been known to take their birthday money from grandma and BUY COURSES??? LOL So, we are hopelessly nerdy and if you came to live here you might be bored to tears!
what age levels are Great Courses meant for? They sound interesting…Would any of them be appropriate for a 2nd-4th grade level?
No, not really. These are INTENDED to be college-level courses, specifically aimed at adult continuing education. I do have a 12 year old who has bought interest-driven courses with his own money but he is odd. He’s an astronomy nut and those lectures tend to have lots of visuals so he loves them. Your average under 14yo would probably not be interested in most of them. There are some aimed at high school students, but I’m less than impressed with most of those. We go right for the college level ones, when the kids are in high school. They are kind of like “practice college” lectures. I have even had them take notes at times to practice that skill as well.
Binky, I actually thought at one time that my kids would never be interested in them either. Until one day when suddenly my oldest wanted to learn game theory, and I didn’t know anything about it. There just happened to be a course, we got it, we loved it, we started looking for other ones we might like, and here we are, with shelves full of lectures.
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