If you use Teaching Company DVDs as a supplement...

[lisabees]

I am using the high school history DVDs as a supplement to a textbook and literature. How would you schedule the dvd? Before or after studying the textbooks/literature?

 

Thanks!

 

Lisa

[djkapp]

I haven't used the HS history DVD's, but I have used the HS chemistry and geometry as well as the British Lit course. I've gone both ways with before and after the regular curriculum. In general, for us it has worked better to use the DVD's first. They provided an overview and framework which the typically more detailed text material fleshed out. We're in the middle of British Lit right now -- using the Teaching Co. series along with Stobaugh, and we've found it to be a good combination.

 

Good luck! Yvonne

[mooooom]

and thought everything needed to line up exactly. Then I began to realize that it didn't really matter. Double exposure is great, and things don't need to line up exactly. The second time a subject is covered, your brain will say, "Oh yeah, I've already heard about that!"

 

That said, it hasn't mattered at all, to my kids, which comes first. I would imagine if you had a child who learned much better one way or the other, to go with the better way first. If your kids can learn multiple ways, it shouldn't really matter.

[dirty ethel rackham]

We used TC dvd's in a small co op setting - 3 families. (Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind, parts of Books that Changed HIstory and Books that Can Change Your Life, The Twentieth Century: The Struggle for Democracy.) For literature, we watched the dvds first and then read the books. We did not use a text for literature. I felt that the kids got more out of out of the books when we listened to the lecture first. For history, we did try to have the kids read from our spine, then watch the dvd and then read any supplementary materials.

[danielle]

using Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition, in our case. It seems to work best for us to watch them first, then read. However, I think it's worthwhile to then have the student read over the outline in the book that accompanies the dvds--kinda cements and reinforces, KWIM?

 

I do think it's somewhat the same as you'd encounter in a university class--is it better, or does the prof expect you to read assignments first, or is the lecture an intro to what you'll be reading? IMHO, Teaching Company lectures do not necessarily expect that you will ever read the works--after all, a lot of people just use them to entertain while commuting or walking the dog. In my dd's case, after hearing the lectures, she was REALLY interested in reading the books, because the lectures told her why and how interesting the works might be.

Danielle

[lisabees]

Thank you all. We've just been using the dvd's as review and will officially start the Middle Ages on Monday.

 

DS is in 7th grade and we'll be supplementing with Glencoe's Journey Across Time and, of course, literature.

 

Still not sure whether to do the text or dvd first. We'll definitely be doing the literature following the lectures.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!