The official guide to courses by Straighterline, Study, et al: We want YOUR input!

[armstrongsubero]

Provider: Straighterline
Course: Calc I
Course content: No textbook. Material is presented through Thinkwell calculus videos with Edward Burger and then practice problems via ungraded quizzes. The course consists of four-chapter tests, 1 midterm, and a final, which are all timed. You can retake the first exam as many times as you want up to the point of taking the final exam. The final exam is the only proctored test of the 6 graded tests in total.
Final exam format: The final exam is 40 questions, multiple choice (all tests are multiple choice) and proctored.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The difficulty of the final was pretty consistent with previous chapter test material. There were no real big surprises that I recall. 
Time taken on course: I spent a great deal of time on this course. I worked on this course regularly for approximately 6 weeks. 
Familiarity with subject before course: I had very little retained knowledge or familiarity with calculus. Taking this Calc I class was in the difficult to very difficult range for me. Here is what I wish someone would have told me prior to starting this class: If it’s been awhile since taking any trigonometry, precalculus, or algebra, then expect to be challenged. Get some working knowledge on at least the rules of exponents, natural log properties, basic logarithmic properties, the unit circle (it would be helpful to be able to wake up in the middle of the night and recite various values in radians etc.), -and by that I mean get ready to use a bunch of trigonometric identities (basic, inverse, some double-angle, sporadic half-angle, graphs of all identities with domains and ranges notated). If you are cold on these topics like I was, then let’s just be honest, -I’m not sure how much you can actually bone up on any of that garble; my advice might be better served for you to just do what I did and relearn (or learn) by fire. But for sure right away, start a neatly manicured page of notes with the above information, which you will then add the various derivatives and integrals of all the trig identities that you define as you go. Of note, my list above is by no means all-inclusive of what your 1 page of front and back notes will look like on final exam day!

Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Here is one of the best things I can actually tell you: The gatekeeper for all things calculus is Professor Leonard on youtube. He is a life-saver, and I cannot understate how much he helped me pass this course. Mr. Burger in Thinkwell is great in a couple of his own ways, but Leonard is where you can actually figure out what’s up from down. When you get to integration by parts, learn from Leonard the “regular” way, but then check out blackpenredpen on youtube and save yourself some hassle (he teaches the DI method). Some of the subjects in Burger’s calc I are taught as calc II topics with Leonard (it is what it is) so just don’t be surprised.
I have three gripes about this Straighterline course. The first is that I felt like Burger’s lectures /videos were sometimes to high-level or they did not adequately encompass the variation(s) of the material that would follow in the practice quizzes and tests. The second gripe takes some explaining. After the practice quiz was submitted you are then shown steps to review how the problem was worked out; however, the way the problems were worked out largely lacked consistency regarding how much work was actually shown and sometimes how the problems were simplified etc. Many times, instead, important steps were not displayed, or the author of the worked out problems made assumptions about the student’s prior knowledge or exposure. This led to many questions that in my mind weren’t necessary had the author just showed a little more work. The third gripe is that they do not show any work for the answers on graded exams.   

1-10 Difficulty level: Calc I difficulty significantly depends on your familiarity /memory of trig., algebra, and precalculus, or your ability to learn on the fly. For me it was a solid 8.   

I'm in the middle of this course right now and my thoughts so far are very similar.

I also agree