Standard Deviants Accelerate TOS Crew Review

 

I have been reviewing an online course the last few weeks by Standard Deviants Accelerate. They have a Standard Deviants Accelerate Homeschool Courses. For the purpose of this review I received a full annual subscription to all their courses. You may be familiar with Standard Deviants Accelerate and have seen some of their courses available in the library. I have seen them but, didn’t have a clue to what it was prior to this review.

The cost for the classes is $99 each per student for a year or $24.95 month per student. The AP courses are $14.95 per student. You can see the prices on this page.

Most of the classes are for middle school to high school. They do have a 3rd and 4th grade class (8 to adult). Some of the classes available are:

Arithmetic - Grades 3+

Fundamental Math - Grades 4+

Earth Science - Grades 6+

Nutrition - Grades 6+

Algebra - Grades 7+

Biology - Grades 7+

Chemistry - Grades 9+

English Comp. - Grades 9+

U.S. History - Grades 9+

AP Biolody - Grades 11+

AP Chemistry - Grades 11+

AP U.S. Government & Politics - Grades 11+

AP U.S. History - Grades 11+

AP Eng. Composition - Grades 11+

This is a secular online learning resource and not from a Christian world view. You will need an internet connection to access the classes along with individual email account for each student. Originally the courses were designed for a classroom and setting up was a bit more complex than what I anticipated it to be. The customer service was extremely helpful and walked me through it step by step. We also set up a private webinar. I was informed that they are working on a friendlier method of signing up for the courses so it won’t be so complex in the future. Until then she said they would happily help everyone sign in until then.

After the initial set up I logged into my teacher’s page and had to set up each course using an access code for both of my children. I did the set up for my children instead of sending them the codes. Once the code is entered you are ready to begin the course. There are 5 tabs for each lesson.

Video-It starts out by you watching a video of the subject. The videos are very lively and have a lot of humor or just plain silliness in the teaching style. There are several speakers on each video so it is always changing and each character has their own personality. Some are more serious than others. The videos vary in time. They are not longer than 10-15 minutes and some are even shorter.

Vocabulary-The “Vocabulary” section helps to reinforce those new words along with a tab to help pronounce those words were you can actually hear the words spoken.

Diagram-The “Diagram” sections has a drag and match in this section. You get immediate feedback if you’re answer is not correct. The words will not stay in place if you put it in the wrong place.

Quiz-The “Quiz” is always 5 questions from the video. You get immediate feedback with the results. If the answer is incorrect then it offers a link to the video to review the question. I thought that was a nice feature to go directly to the source to see the problem.

Written Answer-The last tab is the “Written Answer” which is graded by the parent.

The nice thing is that you can print out in each section to have a hard copy for your records.

How did I use Standard Deviants Accelerate Homeschool Courses?

I used the Arithmetic for Little Man he is almost 9 years old and in third grade. He enjoyed the videos and loved the quirky manner in which the subjects are presented. It really fit his personality. He is my kid who is good at math and doesn’t have issues for the most part picking up concepts. He also wanted to do a few subjects that I didn’t require him to do. He did some of the Fundamental Math which he actually did well in this area even through it was not his grade level. It was interesting for me as a parent to see that he is more learned in math than I thought he was.

He is also curious and wanted to dabble in the Earth Science and Nutrition. Sometimes he did the subjects by himself but, for the most part he watched them with his sister. Actually he helped his sister a lot in these courses.

My daughter has some learning disabilities. My main focus for her was the Nutrition course as she eats a handful of foods and has been close to getting a feeding tube in the last year. I wanted her to grasp the concept of how critical a well-balanced diet. This is where her brother came in as he helped her with the diagrams and quizzes when she needed help. Overall, I think she is seeing how important nutrition and eating the right kind of foods is to your overall health. She liked the silliness of the videos. Sometimes it distracted her and I had a hard time getting her back into focus as she wanted to keep talking about something she found funny.

I also had her do the Arithmetic, Fundamental Math, and Earth Science. She grasped the Arithmetic and Fundamental concepts as it was something she has done before. Having a child with special needs I find that I need to often go back and reinforced previously learned skills with her and the Arithmetic, Fundamental Math was a good reinforcement for her. She also enjoyed the Earth Science courses and they learned a lot of new vocabulary and concepts. This course is the one that you really see that it is from a secular source and talks about evolution quite often. I don’t shy away from secular science and take it as a challenge to teach my kids how to handle this theory in light of God’s word. They do a good job covering Earth Science and both kids have enjoyed many of the topics they have touched on so far. 

Both kids still want to continue with Standard Deviants Accelerate after the review period. Which I was delighted that the kids are wanting to continue with it.

  

Pros:

I like that the grading is automatic and you get feedback instantly and can go to the video immediately if you get a wrong answer in the quiz.

It’s easy to use for both the student and teacher.

You can play the videos over and over and go at your own pace if needed.

You can access progress reports, grading, and rubrics.

You can print off the work for each lesson and course.

Customer service was awesome and made me feel extremely confident with using the program.

I think overall most kids will love the silliness of the videos as they are fun and loaded with lots of teaching within the weird funny presentations of the subjects.

Cons:

Signing in would of lost me if it wasn’t for the great customer service and them walking me through it step by step. It needs to be simplified.(Which I was informed they are working on it).

You need an email for each student. I had to use our main email, iPad email, and Bug’s honey business email. A bit too complicated. I’d prefer one email to simplify the whole thing.

 

I think this is a superior program with lots of options. I love that it covers many high school courses and AP courses to help prepare for those AP test. I am a long way from high school. I like knowing that there is something available when I reach that point in my homeschool journey. I thought this was a pretty amazing online learning resource.

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