BJU Physics dvd's

[SusanAR]

Someone asked me about these. Do I remember correctly that they are not so good, or is it the pre-cal that someone posted negative comments about? I did a board search, but couldn't find anything.

susan

[Susan C.]

Both :)

 

If you want the slowest (and lightest) precalc in town, then BJU is for you. I mean painfully slow to the point where there is panic! Good moments of precalc were the trig, calculator instruction, slower pace when it was too hard to get. Bad moments were the live class thing, the chit chat, dumb questions, mistakes on their materials (you would think if the class was done several years back, that it would be corrected....) We did whole grade BJU in 12th grade, by the 8th week, Precalc and Physics were in the box (I posted about Physics that the books, manuals, etc. took up my entire kitchen table), that means we changed programs. We changed to Apologia Physics (much better) and never really found a good fit for precalculus (tried and didn't like Teaching Textbooks), probably because we were bumping ds upper limits with math. I did BJU math for dd from 3rd - 9th grade, and am hoping she can do Chalkdust for the rest of her math career, but it is too soon to tell if that will happen.

 

I do know a family who used both, and two of their son's went on to get engineering degrees, probably because their father is an engineer, and it is in their genes! So it didn't hurt them.

 

Even though the family above's kids went straight to calculus in college, it was a disaster for us..... ds should have repeated precalculus. His freshman year was a math disaster.

[Halftime Hope]

Someone asked me about these. Do I remember correctly that they are not so good, or is it the pre-cal that someone posted negative comments about? I did a board search, but couldn't find anything.

susan

 

The physics with LINC classes was just awful.

 

The pre-calc teacher was good, but the book was so lacking by comparison with other commonly used texts that we ended up using two texts and a tutor.

 

sigh

[Susan C.]

The physics with LINC classes was just awful.

 

The pre-calc teacher was good, but the book was so lacking by comparison with other commonly used texts that we ended up using two texts and a tutor.

 

sigh

 

Ahhhh, so we were not the only ones that were lost! Thanks for the pat on the back!

[SusanAR]

Thanks. They are asking about the physics. You mentioned that the precal was slow and lacking in scope. Is that the problem with the physics also? Or is it just dry and boring?

thanks,

susan

[74Heaven]

Both :)

 

If you want the slowest (and lightest) precalc in town, then BJU is for you. I mean painfully slow to the point where there is panic! Good moments of precalc were the trig, calculator instruction, slower pace when it was too hard to get. Bad moments were the live class thing, the chit chat, dumb questions, mistakes on their materials (you would think if the class was done several years back, that it would be corrected....)

 

Wow, these were some of the things I did not like about BJU - really, why do the teacher handouts disagree with the teacher's on-video instructions - when they had 5 years to correct the errors.... And the live class chit-chat [ours was videotaped 2003 LINC classes.

BUT we did like the instruction [Dr Conn].

 

OK, we were planning to move into BJU precalc DVDs very soon but.... now I am wondering. What else is out there on DVD for pre-calc...

 

Susan, if you say the BJU is the slowest and lightest, why do you say that. Is the BJU precalc missing important topics - does it skim where it should go deeper... Are there not enough assignments. [That would be one of my BJU geometry complaints.] I could live with ''slowness' of pace'' if it covers everything..

 

thanks, lisaj

[Halftime Hope]

ds had *loved* the biology and chemistry teachers. The textbooks were suitably rigorous and detailed--I really understood what Jay Wyle means when he talks about one of the jobs of a teacher being that of knowing what out of the text to emphaize and what to let go.

 

The physics book didn't bother me nearly as much as the teacher. And they still have the same one. He spent a lot of time solving something incorrectly, re-solving, answering and second guesing his or the notes' answers. Ds even showed me an instance on the video lesson.

 

Sorry I can't help more than that.

[SusanAR]

ds had *loved* the biology and chemistry teachers. The textbooks were suitably rigorous and detailed--I really understood what Jay Wyle means when he talks about one of the jobs of a teacher being that of knowing what out of the text to emphaize and what to let go.

 

The physics book didn't bother me nearly as much as the teacher. And they still have the same one. He spent a lot of time solving something incorrectly, re-solving, answering and second guesing his or the notes' answers. Ds even showed me an instance on the video lesson.

 

Sorry I can't help more than that.

 

Thanks:sad:

[Susan C.]

Wow, these were some of the things I did not like about BJU - really, why do the teacher handouts disagree with the teacher's on-video instructions - when they had 5 years to correct the errors.... And the live class chit-chat [ours was videotaped 2003 LINC classes.

BUT we did like the instruction [Dr Conn].

 

OK, we were planning to move into BJU precalc DVDs very soon but.... now I am wondering. What else is out there on DVD for pre-calc...

 

Susan, if you say the BJU is the slowest and lightest, why do you say that. Is the BJU precalc missing important topics - does it skim where it should go deeper... Are there not enough assignments. [That would be one of my BJU geometry complaints.] I could live with ''slowness' of pace'' if it covers everything..

 

thanks, lisaj

 

Lisa,

I would call it Precalc light. Dr. Conn does have good explanations, the complaint we had is he explained a lesson for three days..... a snail's crawl for what precalc should be. (In college math moves fast). It put ds into a coma.... so we then tried to do it w/o dvds, or just use dvds when we needed them. Then I had to preview. (Because if you hop off, the schedule is wrong and you lose your place, imagine me watching them at 1 am...) Sometimes it took 2-3 days to get enough lesson so problems could be done (so we would keep watching, sometimes 2-3 dvds, that is where the chit chat was annoying).... meaning there wasn't homework every night, unheard of for precalc. If you compare the BJU text to a regular college precalc text (Chalkdust's), you will see what I mean about the level being lower (the concepts are taught, but the problems are easier, also over explaining takes away the student having to figure it out on their own). But, I showed my son Chalkdust's text at a book fair, he said "no way" so I figured BJU would be better than not doing precalc at all. One mom told me that she appreciated the slower pace, or her daughter would not have been able to do it, that is one advantage I see to BJU. Also, there was excellent calculator instruction. I would definitely say if you are good at BJU Precalc (my son got an A), it doesn't mean you will do well with calculus in college (he didn't, but his friend did).

 

My daughter did BJU for math from 3rd - 9th grade, using dvds only for Algebra 1. She loved it. But by the end of the year, she was tiring of the slower pace, so I have moved her to Chalkdust Geometry. I really didn't like BJU text for Geometry. I did like BJU Algebra 2, so depending on how my daughter does this year, she will do either Chalkdust or BJU for Algebra 2 (or I may take a peek at Lial's, I have heard about it but not seen it). For precalc. same thing, I will look at her level and speed and do one of the above for precalc.

[Susan C.]

ds had *loved* the biology and chemistry teachers. The textbooks were suitably rigorous and detailed--I really understood what Jay Wyle means when he talks about one of the jobs of a teacher being that of knowing what out of the text to emphaize and what to let go.

 

The physics book didn't bother me nearly as much as the teacher. And they still have the same one. He spent a lot of time solving something incorrectly, re-solving, answering and second guesing his or the notes' answers. Ds even showed me an instance on the video lesson.

 

Sorry I can't help more than that.

 

The physics teacher seemed so nice (but maybe a bit absent minded), but it was tons of work and we couldn't figure out why we were doing it.... complicated experiments that took hours to set up, tons of equations, the text, the t/e, lab book, t/e for that, link book, t/e for that. Since I had already done Apologia, I was used to how easy it was to use. I wanted to try DVDs, but at the 8 week mark, we quit BJU and bought Apologia Physics.

[Susan C.]

The physics with LINC classes was just awful.

 

The pre-calc teacher was good, but the book was so lacking by comparison with other commonly used texts that we ended up using two texts and a tutor.

 

sigh

 

Our precalc year was BJU, then Teaching Textbooks (having to call every day because CDs weren't finished, but hey, free tutoring, but still didn't like the constant review), then back to BJU, then some of Chalkdust Algebra 2 (it is close to college algebra level). At the end of the year, my son said it would have been better to stick with BJU or to try Chalkdust (but I wasn't up to the price).