How Are Classes Scheduled?

Our classes are designed for full-time professionals who have limited time for outside study. The site is always open, and you can study at your own pace. We introduce a new topic each week, but you aren't required to be online at specific times.

An instructor guides the study of a group of students through the course. Courses usually begin on a Friday, at which time the first week's Resources are introduced. A new topic and additional Resources are introduced each of the following Fridays throughout the course.

What Type of Study Materials Are Included?

Each week's Resources includes narrated slide shows, narrated videos, interactive lessons, reading assignments, and a quiz.

Classroom Discussion -- This discussion group is where the Instructor will post assignments, answer questions, and deliver materials that aren't included elsewhere in the course. Many students find that this is the most useful part of the course. We strongly suggest you subscribe to this discussion area as it is where most of the interaction takes place between you, your instructor, and your fellow students. Subscribing will keep you in-touch and up-to-date with what's happening as the course progresses. See "How to Subscribe" below.

Narrated Slide Shows -- The Comprehensive Home Energy Curriculum (CHEC) includes narration, detailed photos, graphics, and video that illustrate the principles presented in the reading assignments. The narrations provide context for each principle. Each CHEC module includes a set of discussion questions which appear on the last slide. After you view the module, review these open-ended questions to confirm that you understand the material.

Narrated Videos -- These illustrate procedures that are best understood with live action. You can view them as many times as you like.

Interactive Lessons -- These exercises allow you to practice a specific set of skills. They include references to formulas, tables, and narratives in the textbooks that you'll need to complete the exercise.

Reading Assignments -- The Reading Assignments direct you to relevant parts of Residential Energy, the Building Analyst Field Guide, the BPI Standards of Practice, and the RESNET Standards of Practice.

How do I subscribe to the Classroom Discussion forum?

When you first enter the Classroom Discussion, you will see a link "Subscribe to this forum" toward the upper right of the screen. If you would like to know when a new topic or reply is posted, use this link and you will be receive a copy of the forum post by email.

Each post the forum will be sent to the email address of all users who have subscribed to that forum, about 1/2 hour after the post was made. All of the email subjects will begin with the course ID, for example BA092807, and will be addressed from the person that made the original post. One method of organizing these emails is to set up a filter or rule in your email program that moves messages with that text in the subject line to a folder that you setup. (Consult with your email program's help files on how to do this.)

Once you have subscribed, upon entering the forum you will now see a link "Unsubscribe from this forum" toward the upper right. If you no longer want to receive those emails, then clicking this will make that happen.

While subscribing to the forum is not required, we strongly encourage you to do so. It is the main communication area of the course, and we'd like every student to stay involved, and contribute to the discussions.

How Do the Quizzes and Exams Work?

Each week in a course contains a self-administered 10 question quiz which draws from that week's information. The quizzes will be available each Tuesday morning and are open and available for you to attempt for two weeks. The quizzes don't have a short-term time limit, so you can browse back through the week's material to research the answers if you need to.

Important: If you miss the two-week window for a quiz you won't be able to take it, so make sure you start the quiz as soon as you are ready.

You'll see the results of your quizzes as soon as you have completed them. Your instructor can see them, too, but no one else in the course has access to your scores.

If you do well on the quiz, you'll know that you have a good grasp of the material. If you're not happy with the results of your quiz, we suggest that you go back and study the topics that are the most difficult for you (i.e. the questions you missed).

The final exam will be delivered the last week. Once open it is available for three weeks. The final exam has 100 questions and you're given two hours to finish it. By the time we get that far along, you should have no problem completing it successfully. Like the quizzes, you'll see the results of the exam as soon as you submit it.

Your final score for the course is drawn from your quizzes and the final exam. The combined total from your quizzes will account for 25% of your final grade, and the final exam accounts for 75% of your grade.

Why Do You Give Quizzes and Exams?

We've learned that testing can help improve the quality of technical training for adults. You want to learn a new skill, but your time is precious. We have the information resources, but they are too extensive for any one person to grasp in a short course. Testing works for both of us: it allows us to dial in the curriculum we deliver to you, and it gives you the assurance that you've successfully mastered your new skills.

We know that many of you don't need a grade for this class, since it's not part of a certification or licensing program. But we grade the course for these reasons:

The weekly quizzes provide immediate feedback that lets you know how much you've learned. If you do well, you can move with confidence onto something new. If not, you can re-double your efforts to study the topics that you found difficult.

The weekly quizzes provide a feedback loop for us. If several people have a hard time mastering a topic, it may be our fault. We'll want to adjust the curriculum accordingly.

The weekly quizzes and final exam give you test-taking practice that will be helpful if you plan to sit for a certification exam. Many people worry about taking tests, and test-taking is the best way to get over that.

An 80% final grade for the course invokes our Guaranteed Test Prep offer. We simply ask that you do your best to master the material here. But if you achieve an 80% grade here, and you plan to sit for the RESNET or BPI Analyst exams, we guarantee that you'll pass the written portion of those exams. If you pass our test but fail the certification exam, we'll allow you back into the next course for no cost.

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