BJU DVD's - Anyone use Distance Learning for Biology?

[Tami in CA]

I am wondering about the BJU DVD's for Biology. I guess I am wanting to know what you think of this course? Was it interesting for your student? Was it easy to understand? Did you do the labs or just watch them being done on the DVD's? I would really like to know what others think of this course.

Thanks,

Tami

[pianoplayer]

We used BJU Biology w/DVD's this year for our 9th grade son. While we were VERY impressed by the textbook itself, to be honest, the DVD instruction was not of the quality that we would have expected from BJU. The (relatively new) Biology teacher may make a fine instructor with some maturing, but there was a marked difference in the quality of instruction from, say, that of Mrs. Vick (BJU 8th grade Space & Earth Science).

 

I did not know before ordering the Biology DVD's that all of the high school level instruction on DVD is taped from their (former) satellite program. Since we had not used the satellite program, we were rather put off by all of the chatter relating to the ins and outs of the satellite instruction that had nothing to do with our child. (For us as DVD customers, this satellite-related chatter wasted precious instruction time.)

 

Regarding the labs: we wanted this to be a lab course, and so we did all of the labs ourselves. The DVD's included instructions from the teacher regarding the labs. In multiple instances they also included a video of a college biology teacher demonstrating the lab (e.g., frog dissection). My biggest complaint about the labs is that their expectations were completely unrealistic as far as how much time it would take a student who is new to dissection to complete the work. We often spent three hours per lab (but we did try to do things very thoroughly).

 

That being said, our son did learn a lot! While we were disappointed in the overall quality of instruction, that does not mean that the DVD's would not be helpful or useful.

[Susan C.]

I started science doing Apologia. Really like it, but wanted a teacher. So, moved to BJU dvd. They are interesting, but definitely time gobblers. In the classes, they have people help set up experiments, have lab partners. Not at home, its you, you, and maybe mom. The administrative part was a lot for me. I do have positive reviews from friends for the biology and chemistry. I did physics and bailed. We are back to Apologia for second child. We will add Teaching Co. dvds or do online classes for that if we need to.

[Lolly]

We were very pleased with BJU this year. My girls loved the dvd instructor. The satellite portion of the class was a little irritating, but we just fast forwarded through it. The dvd made everything much easier. It emphasized which portions of the units were most important to study. We did the labs. Well, one dd did all of the labs. The other just could not handle the dissections. I allowed her to just watch them on the dvd's instead of participating. Even that was almost too much for her. Some of the labs did take longer than stated, but most of them ran pretty true to the times given for us. We will be ordering the Chemistry for fall.