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University of Nebraska's Independent Study High School is an accredited distance learning school that awards high school diplomas. There are more than 80 different subjects that can be pursued. The courses are delivered over the internet and email. Students must accumulate 20 credits to graduate.
Website: Independent Study High School (University of Nebraska)
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(5 Reviews)
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Contributor Reviews
Reviews are solely the opinions of the contributor.
Cons: No Teaching
Grades Used: 10
I took an online German class as it wasn't offered through my regular high school. There is no real teacher. You email with the administration staff, and they pass questions on to the teacher who then passes a response back through them. I had to learn everything on my own, and my parents had to hire tutors for me. The questions on exams were often tricky and many incorrect. The grading scale is extremely hard. I couldn't wait to finish this course. It was one of the hardest classes I have taken -- and it isn't even considered advanced. I would never recommend this program for anyone -- even for just one online course.
Cons: No Cons
Grades Used: 10
Honestly I can say that university of Nebraska high school is the best online school.
Cons: something new.
Grades Used: 10
I do not think that it very useful learning a different language through a website like this. I am taking a french course in my sophomore year and Most of my test and projects are kind of bad, but as soon as I do something almost completely correct I am accused of using a translator and not accused of studying for my subject. I really try hard to get good grades for this course, but that fact that they would do something like this to a student and contact my teachers makes me want to not take courses on this online school again.
Cons: inconvenient; slow
Grades Used: 11
I enrolled in UNHS as a junior, because I could not attend school any longer for health reasons. A system that was supposed to simplify my life gave me more anxiety than I’ve ever experienced. Independence here feels like it’s confused with abandonment. As for classes, you go through all the material for each lesson, without any face-to-face, or teacher’s help. There are no videos or answers from the required textbooks. After you finish the daunting and confusing lessons, you complete an evaluation--which is a multiple choice quiz, then a free-response project, and then an exam, also multiple choice, usually 50 questions and untimed. When I was investigating before I signed up, I expected tests to be online as well. Instead, you have to find a proctor and take them in person. While this was inconvenient, you also are only allowed to turn in one assignment per day per class. Every single thing I did at UNHS, took easily ten times as long as it did when I went to public school.
Cons: obtuse. impersonal. borders on bad intent.
Grades Used: 12
University Nebraska Homeschool Calculus.
Initial contact information is sent to junk mail with addresses of employee names.
I am not the only one to ignore these junk emails as possible virus problems.
The online material is brief and incomplete to prepare the student for learning, and in particular, testing.
There is zero attempt to integrate the supposed required textbook material with the course.
Testing for the first of 4 sections involved concepts 'taught' in the second section, etc.
Test questions vary from simple to unnecessarily obtuse.
Whoever planned this course is more interested in confusing students with arcane difficult questions than in teaching them calculus.
Answers to homework questions are formatted without care. The typist completing the task of illustrating step by step instructions to solving a problem did not use care in illustrating concepts in vertical columns and instead employs run on equations. Each homework answer sheet has at least several errors which further serves to confuse the students.
There is no attempt to format answers on one page - many times there is a 30 line step by step answer typed out, with the last an line sent to the following page. My kid spent way too much time trying to figure out how to solve a question when the answer was on the next page, sort of hidden away.
This is a self help do it yourself calculus program with zero teacher input and hostile anonymous graders on the other end of the line. If you want your kid to struggle through at a rate of one problem every two hours, this is your program. I can't count how many times I told my kid the simple method of solving their problems and he would be very upset at how easy the problem was and how hard this program made the problem. When i was in school, I had two types of teachers for calculus - teachers who wanted us to learn, and teachers who employ schadenfreude. This program is the latter.
I am writing this to place a fire under those in charge to fix this LOUSY PROGRAM.