AoPS computer classes versus all the other online courses

[crazyforlatin]

Are these classes of the same level of rigor and difficulty as their math classes and books?

 

I'm not looking for the math equivalent since this will be our first foray into computer science and prefer one that doesn't require so much dedication but will still give her a good foundation for future computer science courses.

 

I would like the first course to lead into a deeper interest in computer science. She wants to take a class, so I'm hoping this could lead to more in the future.

 

And I'm not very interested in having her do this independently like through a self-paced class without a teacher.

[Woodland Mist Academy]

Bump  :lurk5:

[Roadrunner]

We haven’t taken them, but I know I have read before that they are at the same level of rigor as math.

[rdj2027]

My son took all their programming classes four years ago so they may have changed.  He had previous programming experience and found them challenging.  At the time he was in 8th grade and said that knowledge of Algebra 2 would have been helpful in writing the programs (if I remember correctly he had to write programs using logarithms and "e" among other things).

[lewelma]

DS took the intro and intermediate python courses in 2017.  He was in 11th/12th grade (kind of over the summer). His math level is crazy high, but he had only programmed in scratch before the course.  The intro course was pretty easy for the first half, and then picked up.  He found it straight forward, but he was *very* glad that he did not try to self-study it and just take the intermediate course, as he was doing 5-10 hours per week and would never put in that sort of time without having set assignments.  The intermediate course was somewhat challenging for him, but it was time consuming - like 10-15 hours per week (and 3 weeks were about 18 hours).  Programming just takes time to debug, and he also chose to do the harder options where there were some, and sometimes he did all three options instead of 1.   He also worked hard to come up with the most efficient solution, so he may have made the course harder than it could be for others.  So the math was not hard for him, but there were some super fun/challenging logic issues to deal with. My feeling was that AoPS did a good job creating a class that kids of many levels could enjoy and learn from.

 

If you have questions, I can ask him directly.

 

Ruth in NZ

Edited February 1, 2018 by lewelma

[Roadrunner]

DS took the intro and intermediate python courses in 2017. He was in 11th/12th grade (kind of over the summer). His math level is crazy high, but he had only programmed in scratch before the course. The intro course was pretty easy for the first half, and then picked up. He found it straight forward, but he was *very* glad that he did not try to self-study it and just take the intermediate course, as he was doing 5-10 hours per week and would never put in that sort of time without having set assignments. The intermediate course was somewhat challenging for him, but it was time consuming - like 10-15 hours per week (and 3 weeks were about 18 hours). Programming just takes time to debug, and he also chose to do the harder options where there were some, and sometimes he did all three options instead of 1. He also worked hard to come up with the most efficient solution, so he may have made the course harder than it could be for others. So the math was not hard for him, but there were some super fun/challenging logic issues to deal with. My feeling was that AoPS did a good job creating a class that kids of many levels could enjoy and learn from.

 

If you have questions, I can ask him directly.

 

Ruth in NZ

Did you give any credit and how much?

[lewelma]

I gave a full credit. 0.5 for each course which were listed separately on the transcript.

[JoJosMom]

DD took the Intro to Python in the summer before 9th grade. She did not find it to be particularly difficult, but it did require a bit of a time commitment. I gave the course credit for one semester (here that's 1 credit, as opposed to the Cambridge .5).

[daijobu]

My dd's did a fair bit of python study with me at home before I had them enroll in the python classes just  because I thought they might be very fast paced.  Hard to say if that was necessary, but I'm glad I did it.