Before we blindly start recommending good things like the free tuition school University of the People, it would be nice to actually experience the school (due diligence) before telling others about it because it is a commitment of a few years time of someone.
I’ve been taking classes mostly for fun and also for due diligence on the said school University of the people. So I can say first hand about what goes on “inside” of the actual class.
For the most part, the classes I have been taking are pretty good. We read, answer questions (by taking quiz – self quiz and graded quiz), post on the forum, grade peers work and write learning journal which are graded by teachers. That’s practically the format for all classes at University of the People (UoP) regardless if it’s a math class or a programming class or a political or history class. The format of learning is the same and it makes sense because it allows easy administration and student don’t have to relearn a format. So all good there.
However like in all good bag of potatoes, there are some that may not be all that good. Some classes need improvement because practically one is being self taught. We read, if not understanding, we ask instructor whom most of them have the time to answer questions but some do not have time. So we are left to the mercy of Google. And when the instructor do not have time, it goes to follow they don’t practically follow through with request. I had student grade me low and after alerting the instructor, nothing was done.
The course content was out of sync with the book so we are doing assignment not yet covered in the reading. Nothing was done about this either. So beware of the instructor who has no time. We can tell they have little time because when they grade our learning journal, we can see they copy and paste their comments. Sometimes they write a line or two, but the rest they just paste some other unrelated comments. This is not good quality education. It is understood that it is a free tuition (but exams cost $100 each) but if good learning cannot occur, what is the point?
So other than the above, the classes are pretty good. UoP is an online long distance class category. This means anyone from around the world can participate and get a USA issued degree.
I will pursue the school administrator to improve on these classes and do something about the instructors because this is a great service to everyone who need higher education and very low cost. I will keep this blog updated.