How much time daily is required by students taking Derek Owens Precalulus & Physics?

[Joyfullyblessed]

Hello, 

My son will be taking both Precalculus and Physics with Derek Owens this school year. I was just curious… approximately how much time per class is required daily? Thank you! 

[mlktwins]

9 minutes ago, Joyfullyblessed said:

Hello, 

My son will be taking both Precalculus and Physics with Derek Owens this school year. I was just curious… approximately how much time per class is required daily? Thank you! 

I'm no help as both of my boys are taking both of these also this year 🤣!  Listening in...

[sammydog]

My daughter is taking both this year....curious, too. 

 

[RootAnn]

It has been over five years since I had a kid take DO Physics. I think she should have spent five hours a week watching videos, doing homework sets, taking quizzes, etc. Plus, there were some labs that could have added to that. 

I know she didn't spend that much time first semester. Additionally, I personally had to build in review for her second semester because she did not learn the material well enough to pass the cumulative midterm the first time.

It ended up taking her almost an entire calendar year when it was all said and done. But, had she put in the time to follow DO's suggested schedule, she could have been finished on time.

Separately, I believe DO's PreCalc has the most practice problems of any of his courses. But that info is several years old.

 I have a kid who will be taking DO Physics this year but not PreCalc. I'd love to touch base occasionally on how it is going!

[8filltheheart]

I have had kids take both and neither courses were overly time consuming.  We easily complete the courses in about an hr per day.

[Farrar]

My kid, who is an inordinately slow worker, spread DO Precalc over the entire year. (Insert eyeroll, but he stayed on top of it all the way himself so there was no nagging and... sigh... he'll finish the exam this week before starting AP Calc next week...) Some weeks, he spent an hour or two a day, but other days he did nothing. It definitely is doable following DO's schedule. Like, even my slowpoke could have done it if he'd buckled down just a bit.

I will say, we had to get a tutor for a few parts in the middle. The help from DO was no sufficient.

[8filltheheart]

1 hour ago, Farrar said:

My kid, who is an inordinately slow worker, spread DO Precalc over the entire year. (Insert eyeroll, but he stayed on top of it all the way himself so there was no nagging and... sigh... he'll finish the exam this week before starting AP Calc next week...) Some weeks, he spent an hour or two a day, but other days he did nothing. It definitely is doable following DO's schedule. Like, even my slowpoke could have done it if he'd buckled down just a bit.

I will say, we had to get a tutor for a few parts in the middle. The help from DO was no sufficient.

I would guess this is going to be student specific.  I have had 2 kids go through his pre-cal without any problems.

[Farrar]

9 minutes ago, 8filltheheart said:

I would guess this is going to be student specific.  I have had 2 kids go through his pre-cal without any problems.

Definitely. But I think the breakdown here is that this is not a course like, say, Connie's chemistry course where if you're stuck, she helps you. If you're stuck, they have a few more videos and then you're on your own. It's basically a curriculum with a grading service. That's fine. I basically knew that going in. Some kids just won't get a thing without at least a small dose of human interaction. 

[8filltheheart]

2 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Definitely. But I think the breakdown here is that this is not a course like, say, Connie's chemistry course where if you're stuck, she helps you. If you're stuck, they have a few more videos and then you're on your own. It's basically a curriculum with a grading service. That's fine. I basically knew that going in. Some kids just won't get a thing without at least a small dose of human interaction. 

We don't pay for the grading.  We do the self-grading option, so we have never tried contacting him for help.  It sounds like maybe the extra $$ per month might not be worth it?

[Farrar]

1 minute ago, 8filltheheart said:

We don't pay for the grading.  We do the self-grading option, so we have never tried contacting him for help.  It sounds like maybe the extra $$ per month might not be worth it?

Ah. I would not trust myself to do the grading on anything beyond Algebra II. The grade is more than just the final answer and I would struggle to know when to give partial credit. So in that sense, worth it.

It's not a major complaint. He finished with a B+, which I think is fine for a kid in pre-calculus, which is a really hard course. Despite my objections (I felt he should take a class with a teacher he could turn to for help and originally signed him up for AP Calc AB with Amelia Chan at PAH), he wanted to do Derek Owens again, so we're doing Derek Owens again. And also, I have to find a way to pay our friend who tutored him because she didn't want to take my money.

[Joyfullyblessed]

Thank you for all the responses. I greatly appreciate them. 😊

[kiwik]

Is it common to take the physics with precalculus rather than earlier?

[cintinative]

On 10/13/2021 at 3:09 AM, kiwik said:

Is it common to take the physics with precalculus rather than earlier?

You only need Algebra I to complete the DO physics.  My youngest is taking it concurrent with Geometry and my oldest is taking it concurrent with Algebra II.

I am late to the party but the time issue depends in part on if you follow the schedule they set out or not.  Their schedule is 32 weeks, IIRC.  My oldest is pretty much following their schedule. My youngest has mild dyscalculia and dyslexia and is about two weeks "behind" (ETA: actually, make that four weeks)  It is self-paced. Both of them spend about 4.5-5 hours a week. 

So far my oldest says he likes it. My youngest, who did not enjoy Algebra, is not loving it so much (too much math) but he does seem to be understanding the concepts and has done pretty well on the tests.  So I would call that a success. 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by cintinative

[cintinative]

On 8/11/2021 at 12:31 PM, 8filltheheart said:

We don't pay for the grading.  We do the self-grading option, so we have never tried contacting him for help.  It sounds like maybe the extra $$ per month might not be worth it?

I'm super late to responding to this, I apologize. We are doing self-grading, and I still do email them for help on occasion. For example, today when there was a homework problem where my son's answers differered because they were negative and not positive, and I asked for clarification and found out his answers were also correct.  I have also emailed them for clarification when we didn't quite understand a concept in the text, and they responded. In other words, you don't have to pay for grading to get homework help.

[RootAnn]

Just a note that as of this fall, pre-calc no longer uses the textbook previously needed. It is set up just like all his other classes.

And my kid is spending 4.5-5 hours per week on physics & not keeping up woth his schedule. I don't yet know why.

[cintinative]

20 hours ago, RootAnn said:

Just a note that as of this fall, pre-calc no longer uses the textbook previously needed. It is set up just like all his other classes.

And my kid is spending 4.5-5 hours per week on physics & not keeping up woth his schedule. I don't yet know why.

IMO the first week is too heavy loaded. I contacted them to see if they had an approximate video time for the various weeks and they did not but I added it up myself and it is about 183 minutes. So that is more than 3 hours of just videos that first week. Then you add in the homework exercises, etc. and it just adds up. They said that many parents split week 1 over more than one week, and that is what we did.

One thing I am finding is that even my oldest, who is a good test taker, needs more than one hour to complete the tests now.  They are really long.  It takes my youngest close to two hours.  

We normally spend about 36 weeks on a subject for science so I am okay with us not keeping to the 32 week schedule.  

I just looked and actually my youngest is four weeks behind my oldest in physics. He is on week 5 and my oldest is on week 9.  

I hope this helps! 

Edited October 15, 2021 by cintinative