Using The Teaching Company for High School Credit

The Teaching Company provides college level lectures on audio and video.  We used them often in our homeschool, to supplement areas the boys were interested in (like science and economics) and to fill in the gaps in my own weak areas (like music.)   Today I got a question about how to count those courses as high school credit.

Lee,
Thanks for the suggestion in your newsletter to check our library for Teaching Company courses. Sure enough, our library has lots of them. Yea!!  How do you decide how much credit to give for one of those courses? They’d make a great summer project.
Thanks,
Kitty in Washington

I know that some homeschoolers feel the classes are college level, so that when you complete a big series (48 lectures) they give a full credit of high school work in that subject.

Other homeschoolers feel that since it isn’t a “prepared curriculum” you would need to count hours, and 48 hours is NOT enough for a credit.  75-90 hours is worth 1/2 credit, just for reference.

I used The Teaching Company mainly as a supplement.  We would do our Sonlight work, and I supplemented with Teaching Company lectures to beef it up.  I had the children take notes from the lectures, so they would get practice with college note-taking while still learning something.

I used the Teaching Company to fill in gaps, as well.  Kevin didn’t get any economics in high school; because his brother studied economics 24/7, I simply FORGOT that I’d never had Kevin even TAKE economics.  Bad Mom!  Once Kevin finished his Econ lectures, I did give him 1/2 high school credit in that class.

I also gave my children full high school credit when they passed a CLEP exam.  Because they learned SO much with The Teaching Company lectures, they were able to pass quite a few CLEP exams in different topics.  Each passed CLEP went onto their transcript as a full 1 credit high school honors course.

So…. you are probably looking for “rules” about The Teaching Company.  I can’t really give you any hard and fast rule.  I can give you my opinion, though.  In my opinion, an adult course with 48 lectures, standing alone with nothing else would probably be a 1/2 credit class.  A high school level course with the workbook and everything, supplemental reading, would probably be a 1 credit course, because I think it would take about an hour a day to get through the whole thing.  But you know, this is why I have my little disclaimer all over my website:

Disclaimer: Parents assume full responsibility for the education of their children in accordance with state law. Parents assume full responsibility for the accuracy of all homeschool records. We offer no guarantees, written or implied, that use of our products and services will result in college admissions or scholarship awards.

There just are no black and white answers on this one!

I hope that helps!

Do you enjoy these daily doses of high school homeschool wisdom?  Sign up to get them delivered via email or reader!

Related posts

• Homeschool Physics - An Apologia Success Story
• Is Homeschooling High School Intimidating?
• When Is an SAT not an SAT?
• Dual Enrollment and Freshman Scholarships
• Going to College vs. Paying for College
• What's Up With Homeschool Reading Lists?
• High School Graduation Requirements
• Accredited Transcripts?
• Admittedly Unequal
• Sunday Morning Homeschool Segment