Quality of Education

[Bunbu]

My apologies if this has been discussed before, I did a search and couldn't find anything relevant.

I know the big 3 are equally comparable on the basis of testing out and transferring previous college work, on that aspect they all fare well and ultimately choosing the school becomes a matter of economics, degree availability and perhaps to a certain extent name.

But which school is considered to excel on its courses and programs if one were to take a regular class without the benefit of testing it out? I know ultimately there may be not a straight answer, and that it strongly depends on the mentor.

If this has been discussed before I shall be thankful if someone points me out the right direction.

[marianne202]

I'm currently taking my 6th & 7th course with Excelsior. As a college instructor who teaches online classes, I find their courses extremely outdated and not well monitored. Their assessments have lots of errors, content outlines have errors, some as blatant as texts listed as required, that haven't been published for years! The texts used in some courses were very poorly chosen and didn't cover the content as the outline suggested would be covered. Some classes required 3 texts, but only a chapter or two was used in 2 of the three texts, a real waste of money for students paying their own way. I think this is part of the problem, a lot of students disappear and probably are military and not paying their expenses, so they don't care or get deployed and EC doesn't care. I have had 3 bad instructors who didn't care about the course or students and some that didn't even know the course outline, texts and material being covered. They had very little interaction with the students and poor email response, if at all. On the flip side I have had 2 wonderful instructors who actually interacted with students and truly were involved and cared about the students learning the material. While I still had course content, design and monitoring issues, these are administrator and course design issues, not the instructors fault. This is also a problem with EC courses. I think that if the instructors had more control over the content and layout they wouldn't have so many issues. I personally, don't feel I have learned anywhere near as much as I would have had I taken these courses in a classroom, but I'm finishing them faster and honestly, I doubt it will make much difference in the big picture, given 30 years of experience backing me up. I think if you are willing to do more reasearch on your own in areas that interest you and are important to your career goals you would be fine, but you will have to know what you need and how to get it. Good luck!

[PsychTestOut]

I'm in my first course at TESC and unimpressed. There is no actual "teaching" or lecturing if that is what you are looking for. The course shell doesn't even match the book, which really makes the writing assignments frustrating when you must write on 2 of the 4 topics and, well, basically you have no choice because some of the topics weren't even covered in the text, and some were but not in the way the written question implies.

I tried to find out from the teacher what to expect on the midterm, especially in light of the course shell, and he basically said he has no clue, the test changes all the time. So, yeah...

[Bunbu]

I was aware no actual teaching was involved but I was under the impression that some kind of mentoring and assistance was provided throughout the course. I've been reading other forums and online reviews and I can't seem to find a definitive answer for this. In some forums the balance tips over to TESC whereas others favor EC. All seem to agree that Charter Oaks has a terrific customer service department. Outdated material and non-interested teachers are common place.

In the end I guess that like in any other college -including B&M- there are good and bad teachers. But it's scary to find cases like Mariannes' that out of 7 courses only two teachers where dedicated enough and left a good impression on her; this should be the rule, not the exception.

[bricabrac]

CAUTION - LONG POST WARNING!! - :roflol:

I'm also at TESC and have a bit of a different view. It is a DIAL program (Distance & Independent Adult Learning) so there is no hand holding. If you need that this is not the right school for you. At TESC we have mentors not teachers. They grade your work and will guide you if necessary; email correspondence, or you can set up a phone session to ask questions. But again, it's not hand holding. Some give feedback on the written assignments and some do not. I've only had one mentor out of 7 that was an extremely slow grader but she was pleasant enough. The student body is for the most part adults and do not need a teacher to tell them what to do.
This was the main reason why I could not get through an associate at the local community college. Bored me to tears! I remember doing a wonderful business presentation on health care for a computer course and getting a B-. One of my classmates did a presentation with pictures of christmas in germany with wooden toys and beer steins, another did one on yoga with Buddha, and butterflies…the instructor loved them both and said as much. The rest of the class was spent discussing her (the instructors) yoga practices and such, yeas, she was a yogi or whatever its called. I don’t think she liked my presentation although the other few in the class over 30 did.

In my TESC computer course the final written assignment was min7 pg research paper with an accompanying min 6 slide PowerPoint presentation. I chose Meg Whitman the eBay queen; first because she is a female CEO and second a technological innovator. The project was packed with facts her bio, history of the company, stock, business partnerships, global presence…etc. The accompanying business presentation was to link up with the paper, I assembled a neat to the point presentation same as I would create professionally. Grade received A!! And that mentor was a hard grader. The midterms and finals can be brutal. Study and you will be prepared. Some courses you just won't get it; but if you applied yourself and got good grades on your assignments you will finish well.
And as a general disclosure: you will more than likely encounter a problem or two with advising and some troubles with overall customer service.:ack: You have to be self-sufficient and diligent in getting yourself to the right person sometimes. The trade off is the cost savings for the level of education makes it a no-brainer at least in my opinion.

I say all this to make a point; you are making the right decision by researching schools from the student body (not just on the school website). Choose the venue that is best for you personally, in relation to your knowledge and experience, and whether it is by a traditional or alternate method you will excel!! Good luck!!

[JBjunior]

CAUTION - LONG POST WARNING!! - :roflol:

I'm also at TESC and have a bit of a different view. It is a DIAL program (Distance & Independent Adult Learning) so there is no hand holding. If you need that this is not the right school for you. At TESC we have mentors not teachers. They grade your work and will guide you if necessary; email correspondence, or you can set up a phone session to ask questions. But again, it's not hand holding. Some give feedback on the written assignments and some do not. I've only had one mentor out of 7 that was an extremely slow grader but she was pleasant enough. The student body is for the most part adults and do not need a teacher to tell them what to do.
This was the main reason why I could not get through an associate at the local community college. Bored me to tears! I remember doing a wonderful business presentation on health care for a computer course and getting a B-. One of my classmates did a presentation with pictures of christmas in germany with wooden toys and beer steins, another did one on yoga with Buddha, and butterflies…the instructor loved them both and said as much. The rest of the class was spent discussing her (the instructors) yoga practices and such, yeas, she was a yogi or whatever its called. I don’t think she liked my presentation although the other few in the class over 30 did.

In my TESC computer course the final written assignment was min7 pg research paper with an accompanying min 6 slide PowerPoint presentation. I chose Meg Whitman the eBay queen; first because she is a female CEO and second a technological innovator. The project was packed with facts her bio, history of the company, stock, business partnerships, global presence…etc. The accompanying business presentation was to link up with the paper, I assembled a neat to the point presentation same as I would create professionally. Grade received A!! And that mentor was a hard grader. The midterms and finals can be brutal. Study and you will be prepared. Some courses you just won't get it; but if you applied yourself and got good grades on your assignments you will finish well.
And as a general disclosure: you will more than likely encounter a problem or two with advising and some troubles with overall customer service.:ack: You have to be self-sufficient and diligent in getting yourself to the right person sometimes. The trade off is the cost savings for the level of education makes it a no-brainer at least in my opinion.

I say all this to make a point; you are making the right decision by researching schools from the student body (not just on the school website). Choose the venue that is best for you personally, in relation to your knowledge and experience, and whether it is by a traditional or alternate method you will excel!! Good luck!!

I have taken many courses at TESC including 300/400 level courses. I have gotten feedback when an assignment wasn't up to par and noticed grade variants for the amount of effort I put into the assignment. While not "hard" I have put many hours into different courses and there was definitely not anything easy about some of the courses I have taken. Dealing with whether you will learn more in a traditional program is going to be different for everyone. I think most traditional programs will be easier because for a lot you just have to show up and put in minimal effort. With the courses I took in TESC I have had some that had minimal reading and assignments and others that had 4-6 essays that are 2-3 pages each due every two weeks along with a series of questions and a hundred pages of reading. You aren't having your hand held but either you will learn the material or you won't, just like in a traditional program.

[Maniac Craniac]

Their assessments have lots of errors, content outlines have errors, some as blatant as texts listed as required, that haven't been published for years! The texts used in some courses were very poorly chosen and didn't cover the content as the outline suggested would be covered. Some classes required 3 texts, but only a chapter or two was used in 2 of the three texts, a real waste of money for students paying their own way.

Same exact problems with the ECE exam I took, so this does not surprise me. I've become less and less impressed with them as my program goes on. Errors in the sample questions, obscure content guides, and books where only half of the information relates to the test (yet, the test still finds a way to incorperate questions from the parts of the books that weren't covered in
the course outline :\). The one course I took with them, the Info. Lit. course was a sham My experience w/ this school is very limited, but so far not really impressive.