The Great Courses: Can we watch individual lectures?

[EKT]

I'm new to Great Courses; I just today signed up for the free trial for Wondrium. 

My question: As a general rule, can I have my child watch just individual lectures from various Great Courses? (That is, do individual lectures generally make sense on their own? Do they work as stand-alone segments?) 

What I'm trying to do: I'm using the Oak Meadow World History curriculum as our spine for world history, and I'm poking around through different Great Courses, looking for individual lectures to pair with our weekly reading assignments. I guess I'm just wondering if this approach will generally be successful? For instance: There is a 48-lecture course on ancient history that looks great, but we can't possibly spend that much time on ancient history. Can I just pluck out the lecture on the Nile River to pair with our readings about Egypt? (Basically, I'm concerned the individual lectures won't make sense if we haven't also watched all the previous lectures.) 

Thanks for any advice!

Edited July 26, 2021 by EKT

[Farrar]

Depends on the series. But my kid did this for his unusual biology credit. So... sure. Many of them do. I think it would work for history as well.

[regentrude]

Depends on the lecture series. We had courses from which we selected only individual ones. (But the vast majority we used in their entirety. )

Edited July 26, 2021 by regentrude

[EKT]

Thanks for the feedback! (I'd still love to hear from others, if anyone else would like to chime in!) 

I've been looking into this more since posting, and I think I am going to use Crash Course World History videos instead, for this particular course. (The Crash Course videos actually align pretty well with the Oak Meadow lessons and the readings I'm planning. Plus the Crash Course videos are much shorter, which is a plus with an endlessly expansive course like world history.) 

But I'll definitely be using Crash Course for other subjects... Thanks again!

Edited July 27, 2021 by EKT

[CAtoVA]

We've been using Wondrium lectures for ancient history this year. It has worked thus far but we are still in Egypt.....taking our time......so I don't have a ton of experience yet. When we were studying pyramids we watched lectures related to pyramids (even out of order) and it was fine (a nice way to break up my DD's own reading/answering study questions, etc.). I would stop a lecture every so often and ask her a question if I thought it warranted. 

My DS, otoh, loves films and we have been watching the movie lecture series (don't remember what it's called, sorry....) We definitely have been jumping around there because that lecture series covers many, many topics related to film and he is not interested in all of them. So far, there has been no problem skipping.

One thing I do before I assign a lecture to my DD who is doing ancient history, is I look at the pdf guidebook to see what is covered in a lecture I am interested in having her watch. It's been  pretty obvious so far to me from the lecture info (pdf guidebook) whether or not background knowledge is needed, or if it would seem like the lecture would not be able to stand on its own.

I love Wondrium—it's  been a great resource!

 

[Alicia64]

My kids loved Great Courses. I just wanted to put in a plug for the library. Libraries in the both of the states we've been in had a great selection of Great Courses!

Have fun!!

[Farrar]

Oh, and some library systems offer access to Great Courses Plus (so presumably now to Wonderium?).

[theelfqueen]

I tend to avoid the broad "spine" series like "Ancient History" and deep dive on a side topic like "Ancient Egypt" ... rather than trying to align individual lectures to my overall plan (ie we did the whole Vikings and Black Death series during our Medieval year ... aside from our main topics) .. but I have used individual lectures here and there (especially from like a Great Thinkers series or the Shakespeare lectures that match our topic). When I've used them this way it has been fine, still a load of good info-  though there have been references to previous or upcoming lectures. 

 

Crash course videos are great but be aware they are FAST paced. There are lots of study guides and things to align to most of the Crash Course options on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

Edited July 29, 2021 by theelfqueen