Output/grades for The Great Courses?

[alisoncooks]

If you've built courses around TGC (plus reading), how did you assign grades? What sort of output did you require? 

Research papers, projects, tests? Is there a good source for tests to go with these courses? (I'm sure I can't make them, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel...)

[klmama]

I may assign essay or research topics, or dc can choose them.  If we don't have something in mind, each lecture has a couple of questions (in the downloadable guide book) which can be used for essay topics or discussion, or we look in textbooks or other written resources for ideas. 

If I want to include tests in these courses, but the textbook we use along with the lectures doesn't have them, I may write a set of questions to be answered with short essays.  I try to include a variety of question types, so it's not all just factual recall.  "What happened at ___, and why was that significant?"  "Compare and contrast ___ and ___."  "Analyze how ___ affected ___ .  How are those effects relevant to ___?"  "How do you think the result of __ would have changed if ___ had ___?"  Etc.  When writing the questions, I take care not to make them "gotcha" questions; the point is to help students show what they know, not to catch them with questions on minor details.

We have gotten some good project ideas from the National History Day contest site.

 

[regentrude]

Depends on the subject. We used them for history and literature; the kids wrote research papers and essays.
If I had used them for science, I would have graded based on problem solving and tests; I did not, however, find GC a suitable tool for science instruction

Edited May 7, 2021 by regentrude

[Momto6inIN]

We did the same as regentrude. They took notes as they watched and sometimes they answered the questions from the guidebook and sometimes they write papers based on a particular subject of interest.

[theelfqueen]

We mostly use Great Courses as a supplement and mostly in history topics  ... we do sometimes use the course guide .PDF as a source for short essay questions. We do map work for corresponding regions for historical series. We do additional research like when he used the Law School for Everyone and we researched cases. 

For say the Meteorology one, we reviewed the course guide but also did labs ans demonstrations and used a text . In Middle school we paired Ellen McHenry's The Brain with a neuroscience GC. 

We also sometimes build projects (example DS wrote role playing modules for both Vikings and Crusades eras - including maps, characters, encounters with historical elements and arms.) 

Edited May 9, 2021 by theelfqueen