Propero/Pearson courses

[armyb77]

Update: I still have not received the email that gives me access to the course. I am contacting customer service and we will have to see how long it takes for them to respond. I guess they are closed for the holiday. I just wonder if they will extend my 24 hour refund if the course doesn't suite my needs?
You would think they would post on their website 12 business ours or 24 hours during normal business days. Oh well, I'll just wait and see.

[armyb77]

I just figured I would give everyone an update as to the status of my order. I still have not received any access email. I have contacted Pearson via multiple means (phone, multiple email addresses, and live chat) and they have been unable to resolve the issue. I continue to get the response to "let us know if you don't get it by tomorrow." Of course I never get the stupid email, and they force me to start over each day. I have to say so far they are the worst company I have ever dealt with when it comes to customer service. I almost feel like i'm dealing with a "Real College"...lol Anyways once the issue is resolved and I gain access I will post my review of the product.

~armyb77

[armyb77]

I received access to the course today. So far I have completed Lessons 1-3 out of 12. I do not want to violate any copyrights or compromise the course so I will be leaving certain information about the course out (Reference Material, actual questions, specific topics, etc.) Here is what I can say so far:

Courseware:
The overall courseware is easy to understand and use. Each lesson comes complete with a presentation, audio lecture, and reading material. The problems I have with the course is that you are limited in your ability to print materials for referencing, so if you are taking this course, it is best to have 2 monitors so you can highlight the ebook while reading the presentations. It is almost impossible with only one monitor to effectively study for the quizzes. You are given 2 ebooks for the course, and they are pretty easy to read. Each Lesson has about 30 pages of reading in the book, a 25-35 slide presentation with a 20 min audio lecture. (the audio is called "On the Go Audio" and can be used without the presentations. The presentations have a choice of text only, or interactive. The text only presentation is just the information and the answers to the "check on learning" questions. The interactive gives more situations but takes time to get through. Most of this course seems to focus on research, and research methods. There seems to be no Proctored exam during the course. There is no novel to read like in straighterline, however you will have to read multiple articles, and journals to prepare your written assignments. The last thing of note is you only have 12 weeks from your enrollment date to complete the entire course! With that said however; I was able to complete the first 3 weeks in one day, so it is not overwhelming minus the 10 page paper that you have to write! (more on that later)

Grading:
Writing Assignments = 20% of your grade
Quizzes = 20% of your grade
Tests= 40% of your grade
Final Exam = 20% of your grade
Total: 100%

Now for more detail on these areas.
The Writing Assignments:
There are four writing assignments:
Assignment 1 : 200 word paragraph on academic research (what you learned, challenges, etc). Due no later than (NLT) the beginning of Lesson 6
Assignment 2 : At least a 10 page paper on a your research topic from Assignment 1 with at least 10 sources! Due NLT the beginning of Lesson 9
Assignment 3 : No more than 1250 word Paper on a topic that is supplied along with research references. Due NLT the end of Lesson 9. My topic is the BP Oil Spill, but I don't know if it is always the same or not.
Assignment 4 : A paper that is 1250 words (it doesn't say at least or no more than) evaluating your literary analyses. Due NLT the beginning of Lesson 12.

Practice Quizzes:
Each lesson has up to 5 Practice Quizzes that DO NOT go towards your grade. You must achieve a 80% to move to the Graded Quiz for the Lesson. The practice quizzes that I have taken so far only have 5 multiple choice questions that are related to the Lesson. I will say however that it seems the questions sometime ask things that are actually part of the next lesson module. You have 55 minutes to complete the quiz. If you miss more than one question you will be forced to take another practice quiz until you achieve the 80%.

Graded Quizzes:
Each Lesson has a Graded Quiz. So far all of the graded quizzes have 15 multiple choice questions focusing on the Lesson you are on. You get 55 mins to complete the quiz. These questions are more pointed than those in the practice quizzes, so they take less time to answer in my opinion.

Practice Tests:
These are just like the practice quizzes but cover 3 lessons of material. (Lessons 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12)

Tests:
These are just like the Graded Quizzes but cover 3 lessons of material. (Lessons 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12) They are also much more important than the quizzes as each Test is worth 10% of your grade, and each quiz is only worth 1.67% of your grade.

Final Exam:
I can't speak to this exam yet because I haven't taken it, but you are allowed up to 4 hours to complete it.


My overall assessment is that this course will be challenging, but doable. The Technical Support for initial enrollment is HORRIBLE! This is mainly do to the fact that they do not do the processing for the course on the same website as the courseware, in fact it is an entirely different branch of the company! The other branch has little to no knowledge of Propero's existence. I will probably take more classes with them in the future so I can review them. Of course I need to get through this one first, and I will only take one at a time so I can focus on DSSTs, and CLEP exams. The other courses I may take are as follows: Accounting I, II, Macro/Micro-economics, and Business Law.

Please feel free to ask questions and I will attempt to answer them.

Cheers!
~armyb77

[armyb77]

Update to review:

I thought I would provide an update to the English Comp II course that I have been taking. Lessons 1-3 concentrate primarily on research, lessons 4-6 concentrate on plagiarism, and citations, lessons 7-9 concentrate on revision editing, and lessons 10-12 concentrate on APA, MLA, and Chicago Formatting.

Multiple quizzes and exams have issues with the wording of questions. Some questions only provide the example and choices, but not the actual question. Other questions don’t specify what style (APA, MLA, or Chicago) the question derives from. On Test 4, it was so bad I got a 53%. This is after receiving 93% or higher on all the quizzes and 100% on the practice quiz. I emailed my academic advisor to ask for a protest on the exam. Hopefully I will be able to take a retest without penalty because no less than 6 out of the 15 questions were worded poorly and there was no reference material to support the questions and answers provided.

I have now completed all of the requirements except the 3 out of the 4 writing assignments and the Final Exam. I have ordered hard copies of the books so that I can highlight and study again before taking the final. As far as the papers go; I am currently writing the 10 pager. The other 2 assignments should go much faster as the reference material is already provided for those. I believe that once I turn in the 10 pager and take the final exam it will be impossible for me to get below the 70% even if I completely bomb the last 2 writing assignments. Once i'm done I can start to figure out how to get the course accepted on my ACE transcripts.

It is very obvious that Propero is new. They are continuing to work through multiple issues. Every lesson brings new problems, to include submissions of papers. On a positive not; the academic advisor that Propero provides is outstanding. She takes the time to listen to the problems and gets them resolved so I can progress through the course. Some of the problems that I am experiencing (wording of questions) however will be out of her control. I think that as long as Propero is proactive in making improvements they will become a great resource for alternative higher education learning.

[Vandalet]

Thanks for the heads up on the coupon code, the Spring13 one still works, took $45 off. Signed up for Critical Thinking, hopefully it goes a little smoother than you described.

[armyb77]

Last update on Propero's English Comp II.

I have now completed all of the quizzes and exams. The Final exam is 100 questions, and consists of 75% questions from the quizzes and other tests, and 25% new questions. At this point, I am guaranteed to pass with above a 70% and I still have 1 paper that is being graded, and 2 more to write. I should be able to finish the last 2 writing assignments by the end of next week. I'm pretty sure that they will not award ACE credit until the course shows 100% complete, so even though I have already passed (mathematically), Propero will most likely force me to complete the writing assignments. Overall the course is pretty tough but passable.

Good luck to anyone considering taking the course. It is definitely an alternative to Straighterline!

[armyb77]

I thought I would let everyone know how the ACE transfer went, just to close the process out with Propero. Once all of my grades posted to Propero from SMARTTHINKING (Writing Assignments) I received an email from my Academic Counselor asking to confirm my information for ACE submission. The following day I received an email from ACE saying that the course was added to my Transcript. I then logged into my transcript and it was not there. I called ACE and it seems as though a second account was created by Propero, but it was fixed in seconds with the simple phone call.

I am now on to Straighterline to start getting my BSBA Reqs with TESC done. I was able to get Acct I, and Acct II done over the weekend, now on to Macro/Microeconomics. Of course I still haven't gotten my Macro book in after 10 days!

Good luck to all either

[sdobis]

So the final wasn't proctored? Would you use them again? I like that they offer a large number of criminal justice courses. I wonder how they compare to Penn Foster. I wouldn't use them for another year or so, so hopefully the bugs will be worked out by then.

[armyb77]

There was no proctor for English Comp II. I can't say that this applies to ball courses however because English has writing requirements, and other courses may not. If Proper had other courses I may use them again, but after Macro/Micro-economics all I have left is upper level classes which Proper doesn't really offer.

[Vandalet]

I wish there was a way to see the course work for each one, like see which have no writing or proctored test involved.