Study.com CLEP & DSST ~~ A New TOS Review!!

Since I have a high schooler, I have been looking for options that would help her meet her goals. She's been taking some dual enroll classes at a local technical school as well as doing our regular studies at home. So when we had an opportunity to receive a 3 month subscription to Study.com to check out their CLEP and DSST prep materials I thought this might be an opportunity for her to study a new language, like she's been wanting.

So what is CLEP and DSST prep materials exactly??

CLEP stands for College Level Examination Program. At Study.com there are 32 courses (subjects like College Algebra, Western Civ. I and II, Spanish Level I and II, Biology, and English Literature to name a few) that you can sign up for which include video lessons and prep tests to get you ready for taking the CLEP exam. This exam allows you to earn college credit in a faster way and at home. You do still have to pay to take the exam, but this might be a more financially economical way to afford college and you could take one class at a time to really focus on. You do also want to make sure that the college(s) you are looking at going to will accept the CLEP exam so that the credits you take will actually be added to their college transcript. The lessons are taught by an expert in the field and there is an "Ask the Expert" feature if you have questions about the material you are studying. You can work on this on any device that can attach to the Internet so that makes it easy to use even on the go!

DSST stands for DANTES Subject Standardized Test and was originiated by the United States Department of Defense as another way to get credits by examination tests. This once was just for military members and their families, but is now open to everyone. They offer 30 different exams that cover 6 differet subject areas - English, math, science, business, history, psychology, and health. Business Math, Ethics in America, and Technical Writing are a few of the courses available at Study.com. DSST's are very similar to CLEP exams and really the difference is in your choices for the multiple choice questions as well as the amount of time you have to take the final exam. Once again, you really want to be sure that your school of choice will accept this type of test for credits so you don't waste time or money doing them. These are set up similarly with short video lessons followed by self assessments.

Both of these courses will take between 15 and 20 hours to complete which is certainly less time then a traditional college course. When we started this I asked Arianna what she may be interested in and of course she picked a new language. Since she had no prior interaction with Spanish I didn't think we would need to start with a placement test. I was not sure if she would be able to accomplish a brand new subject in just 3 months and she has not really gotten that far in, so we may have to add another month or so. That being said here is her Dashboard. You can see everything that's going on at a quick glance.

Dashboard

You can do the modules in any order, but she is working from the beginning. You will see your progression as you work through the chapters. You will also see your test or quiz scores.

Short Quiz

Graded instantly

You will also see the goals that you have for each week to be accomplished. At the bottom of each lesson you will see a full transcript of what is being taught to you in the video. This is great for your visual learners so they can read the lesson as well as watch or hear it.

Lesson Summary

Video lesson on Hay

Transcript of lesson on Hay

Then after each lesson there is a short quiz. At the end of each chapter there is a 30 question test.

One feature my daughter liked was the ability to take notes while watching the video. She could type them up and save them. They are also time stamped to where that note is from within the video so you can quickly find where that was if you need more review on that note.

Notes on the right hand side and time stamped so you can find them in the video.

Right now on the progress board it shows my daughter as being behind. Her other in class college dual enroll classes got her a little stressed and with the unexpected death in our family we spent more time travelling than we had anticipated. However, college classes are over next week and she will spend a bunch more time this month and next working on her Spanish so I have no fear that she will get a majority done in the 3 month subscription we have been granted by Study.com. One thing I realized (after the fact) was that you could set up email reminders to help you stay on track. I will need to set those up so she gets regular emails. She has a tendency to forget or work on something longer then she really planned.

Because the courses are self-paced she can take as long or as little to complete the course. I knew that since she had no experience with Spanish it might take her a little longer, but she has had a good bit of Latin and has been working on French for a few months as well. Having that as a background I figured she'd catch on to Spanish in a flash. I expect she'll be doing more in the course now that her other required college classes will be complete and she can focus better.

Recent activity

I also think that the basic monthly fee of $39.99/month is not that bad if we have to pay for an extra month or two so that my daughter can get a language credit for college. That's a lot cheaper then a traditional college course. We will be looking at hopefully taking the CLEP exam for Spanish before the end of the year.

All in all I believe Study.com has been an asset for my daughter. It has allowed her to work on another language and start really prepping for college. I think that as a homeschooler CLEP and DSST are true assests in our aresnal as parents to help give our high schoolers a good foundation in college. And it can be a more financially economical way to get college credit before "going" to college.

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