Am I the only one who does not like this dude's teachings? To me he does not teach very well. Dont mean any disrespect

I think Andrew's classes are great--he is one of my favorite instructors at TH. I think he does a really good job of explaining things. And to be fair, just saying "Dont mean any disrespect" does not mean you aren't being disrespectful. It is pretty rude to post a question in his class saying that you think he's a bad teacher.

Yeah, I've been struggling with his jQuery Basics course after having no problem with the other Front-End instructors. The other courses seemed more structured in presenting the building-blocks of the languages and techniques they taught. In those videos, nothing was a surprise, and the style of approach was introduced before challenging the user to execute it. I could pause those and already make a good stab at doing something myself first. With Andrew's jQuery videos, I feel like we're kind of stumbling through a project, and as we go along, our code keeps getting changed and moved around and switched out for new code. The style of narration also makes it hard to judge what's important or what's best-practice--there's rarely moments of authority. It feels rather unscripted and off the cuff.

I've already dabbled with some jQuery on YouTube and other sites, but I was looking forward to getting to run through the real basics and foundations of how it works on Treehouse (as I have with other languages), but I've mostly just found myself wondering why different parts fit together the way they do.

Update: Edited for typos, and to add that I've been running through Code School's free "Try jQuery" course (suggested on another forum question), and I feel like this is the approach I personally needed to have a better understanding of how jQuery pieces work together and how to best navigate the DOM. Once I finish this, I'll continue through jQuery Basics.

I think people saying "do research," "programming is hard" and "you don't want to work/learn" miss the point. I'm paying Treehouse. I'm not working on a personal project or doing free tutorials here. The way I see it, if I'm paying $25/mo or $49/mo or whatever, I shouldn't have to "do research" elsewhere because a teacher here introduces something and doesn't adequately explain it as he/she SHOULD be doing, or because the quiz answer is something that is slightly different than what is in the videos and was never explained well in the videos (i.e. ("a.external") as opposed to (".external a") in one quiz). This was exactly my problem with Udacity--you want people to pay all this money, and then the material lacks clarity or good explanations at times, making students have to go to free resources. Shoot, might as well not pay Udacity or Treehouse if you have to go to free resources anyways to actually learn the material.

To some degree, learning style and teaching styles are issues, and it's not "one size fits all." What I don't like about Andrew's jQuery videos is he teaches by jumping right into projects as opposed to introducing different useful/popular methods/functionality in jQuery first, for example, and THEN bringing projects into it that allow me to use what I've learned from him, a la Dave McFarland style. From what I see from a few others here, using projects to teach from the get-go is part of what makes it confusing for them because that's why code changes during these jQuery videos. This is probably a learning-style issue, true, but I can't see how presenting and thoroughly explaining various methods in jQuery first (like he did with .hide() and .show() at the beginning) and then introducing a project to REINFORCE learning would confuse ANYONE more than how jQuery is currently being taught here.

Now, if it's a matter of material being explained pretty well here and you still just don't get it, that's when outside research should come into it. But, to me, instructors here shouldn't be doing anything to their code and anyone is sitting there like, "Why was this done?" because it wasn't addressed or the explanation wasn't clear enough. Honestly, the best way for a teacher to make sure an explanation is clear enough is the Dave McFarland "kindergarten" approach--not his tone, but the "explain absolutely every little thing and briefly repeat it in a different video when it comes up again" part. JavaScript absolutely is harder than you'd think it'd be, especially if you've been exposed to other programming languages, but Dave's videos still go a long way towards really grasping JS, and do so without my having to go to other resources to understand. Andrew's videos are not quite to that standard, for me, personally.

Ya everything was fine until jquery was introduced, I had to learn actually everything , ya literally everything from youtube and other resources. Something is amiss, I mean at least for me things are not working out.

I like Treehouse but something is seriously wrong with the jquery course, I don't know. No offense Andrew Chalkley.

I am not questioning your teaching methods, obviously no; it's just that things are not working out for me.

I personally do not like his teaching style. He backtracks a lot, sometimes is not very clear on what he is talking about, etc. For the most part the treehouse workspace has not worked for me. The jquery course on a whole was just super disappointing for me especially since jquery is suppose to be fun. I found it painful with Andrew and I shudder every time I see a course where he is the lecturer. There is a new jquery course coming out this month, so I'm hopeful. Sorry if this post was brutally honest.

I can understand not liking someone's particular style of imparting the information, and absolutely their delivery... perhaps too dry or too quirky or maybe they always sound like they're addressing a circle of kindergartners during story time (I'm looking at you Dave McFarland ), but to be disappointed because you had to "look stuff up"? Well bro, sorry but, perhaps you chose the wrong field to pursue?

If you could see the amount of notes I take and the time that I spend pausing all the videos after EACH new thing so that I myself can go and do a copious amount of my own research about it and how it works but under the hood and in the implementation, and then coming back and experimenting with the project/lesson to try and successfully apply what I think the teacher is gonna do before I ever press play again, you'd mess yourself at the thought of "is that what I should be doing??".

Sometimes it'll take me an hour to get through a 4 minute video simply because of all that. And sometimes? Even longer. The avenues of learning that it has led me down has been phenomenal and I can't actually fathom the idea of extra-curricular research being something that is unpleasant to do.

I ... honestly, it's like hearing someone say "I don't like to read". Immediate red-flag lol.

Anyway, I really dig this course as well as all the others (even poor Hoskins' vids... totally underrated) as they always give plenty of information to follow along without ever really researching too much, but also give me just enough of a thirst to go wandering aimlessly through the desert of API's, Blog posts, SO threads, Docs and Vids so that I can reach their level and truly understand all these wonderful things on an internalized level.

I hope that you too find that thirst. But, I hear they need welders in SD or something, too.

Cheers,

Huck -

p.s. No offense, bro.

I quite like his methods, I like how we start from the very basics and work towards understanding why certain coding out there looks the way it does.

I youtubed most of my jquery and javascript. LOLs.

Jquery documentation sucks!

The python courses here are great. Front end track is great. Design track is great. I haven't tried andriod nor iphone apps courses yet.

Php here is great.

A little late to this discussion but I wanted to chime in. If it feels like Andrew is presenting a lot of information and its difficult to grasp after one viewing, it's because programming and JavaScript are difficult. This is also an intermediate course and assumes we have some prior knowledge and take the initiative to do further research on our own to beat the knowledge into our thick skulls. I'll admit I felt the same way when I first viewed Andrew's lessons on interactive pages with JQuery, and even the most basic courses on JavaScript with kindergarten teacher Dave McFarland (really enjoy Dave's style by the way, go ahead and treat me like a simple person, I am and this stuff is tough). Then I watched them again. And again. Then I bought 2 books on JavaScript and read some documentation. Then I started watching Travis Neilson's DevTips channel on YouTube. I've come to the realization that everyone has different learning and teaching styles, and you cannot rely on one source to be the be all end all of your Development journey. After rewatching the videos and all my other research I'm proud to say I actually understand this time what Functions and Loops are, and why they are so vital to learn. And now I know how to add some interactivity to my web pages with JQuery, even if they still look like crap. That's the beauty of programming and development, it is a never ending journey and you will never know everything, but I've never found anything quite as rewarding. Cheers Andrew keep up the good work.

I can't believe this post is still active, but anyways, to the people that are saying they love Andrew and he will not walk with you holding your hands, I understand that. I never said I wasn't willing to do my own research and learn on my own. Even when a person has to learn on their own that does not mean the instructor should not be clear. I was 17 when I took the jqurey course, and it was in my opinion awful, I'm not the only one that thinks so. The instructor at that time was not clear so I didn't have a clear guide to begin my own research. When I youtubed a couple of videos and bought a book on on jquery, I said "this is so simple ". But If a student has to learn on their own to comprehend faster that's great, but if they have to learn on their own to REPLACE an instructor 's course, with a book, that's a problem. Not too long ago I came back to treehouse to see what was new, and there is another jquery course with another instructor, I did some of the lessons and it was extremely clear in my opinion with this new intructor, the clarity in the Andrew's course in my opinion was not there. If I never did any research on my own I don't think I'd be far in software engineering.

For me Andrew and Nick are the best teachers in th, I can listen to their courses with pleasure no matter about what the course is :)

I guess I'll be more clear, the way he approaches a subject is not for a beginner ,and yes in my opinion when he explains stuff he needs to be more clear. If he's a teacher and I'm the student , I'm not saying I should not be doing research on my own, which I do BTW. Students should use other sources to grasp the subject better, but I shouldn't be REPLACING his course with a book and youtube videos. I'm very proficient now in JS & Jquery :)

I think Andrew is the best teacher on Treehouse, and he is the only reason why I'm paying for.

Oh that's surprising, I find his courses really easy to follow, he is one of my favorite teachers.

Im currently working through Andrew's Express.js videos. Where I find the teacching style different from other, I think is more down to the approach of the videos and subject. For example, I am also watching Stephen Ginder on Udemy, and he breaks down every line. I know this comes down to budget, business, and KPIs, but at the end of the day, I find that some of Andrew's videos tell me what to do as in 1,2,3, but they dont tell me WHY it works, and I think that is essential to JS, more so that CSS or HTML

I feel like treehouse started with courses that had really long videos (10+ minutes).

Then they started to break those courses into multiple courses and those videos become smaller (2, 3, 4 minute videos). This was much better.

However, I think this class could have broken the concepts down a little further. Still, this is much much much better than the first javascript class treehouse had.

I've enjoyed watching them progress (rapidly). I think this class is confusing because of the structure and not necessarily anything to do with Andrew. You have to remember that way more than just Andrew works on developing the curriculum.

Greetings, friends. I finished the Interactive JS course, and it feels like a huge accomplishment. I was really stuck for awhile. For those who are struggling, I'll share what I did differently my second time working through the course, hoping this approach will be helpful.

I was trying to be super studious before by following along and coding with the instructor (in this case Andrew), but that made it difficult to really absorb the material. This time, I watched the videos on the mobile app, took notes, and systematically worked my way thru the challenges. Consider watching the videos again and giving it another try. This time, focus on absorbing the information, rather than trying to build something. That will come in time.

I will also say that Andrew's introductory SQL course is outstanding, and so is his course on Object-Oriented JavaScript. I am still adding functionality to the calculator we started in the OOP JavaScript course, which is helping me learn some of the math functions. I also recommend his intro SQL course. You'll learn a lot and it's fun! The explanations are very clear, and I feel like he put a lot of thought into the course.

The lessons seem to be missing some theory behind concepts such as inheritance and prototypes before launching into a project, a deeper understanding is needed. Due to not being able to gain as much knowledge as needed from the course i looked around online and found this one to be really useful....

https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-javascript-course/learn/v4/overview

Just going to throw an idea out there. I'd like to see Dave McFarland and Andrew Chalkley co-teach a JavaScript course. I think both instructors have their strengths. Dave breaks things down in an easy to understand way, while Andrew gives some perspective on what it's like to be a developer in the real world. The reality is that when you're a developer, you're not going to have a Dave to walk you through a problem. You're going to be presented with problems the way that Andrew presents them, which means having to think through the issue on your own.

I don't like Andrew's teaching style at all.. out of all the teachers, Andrew had to be the one teaching javaScript. Treehouse is going to lose alot of students due to lack of responding to our feedback. Going to check on Codeschool to learn about javaScript

I quite enjoy his teaching style though I can see why its not for everyone.

Andrew Chalkley is probably my favorite teacher on here. Just depends on your preference / how you learn.

I've found all the instructors on Team Treehouse to be fine. If there's something that seems confusing, then do research. No one single instructor is going to be the perfect teacher for all students; that should be obvious. The internet should be your teacher. Stack Overflow answers, Google, MDN documentation, various other online courses (eg. FCC, PluralSight, etc.), and so on, the list of resources is seemingly endless. The knowledge is available at your fingertips but you have to have persistence and grit.

Programming is NOT easy. But if you put in the hard work you may find it incredibly rewarding. It's been the most intrinsically rewarding endeavor for myself at least.

I would like to mention that I don't think the JavaScript and JQuery challenges and quizzes are tough enough. Students should be tested from the start to really grasp the fundamentals, so that when they get to tougher areas, such as creating objects, they aren't thrown off by the same programming problems that complexed them at the beginning of the course/track. I've got a little programming background, which is why I've been able to progress halfway through the Full Stack JS track in a little over a week, but I still get complexed when I have to redo something from the past, because I didn't do enough of it or wasn't thoroughly tested.

I think Andrew course on Jquery basics is good. although sometimes it was a bit vague.. I still do not know what a Jquery object is although I can probably use them and append them to the DOM without realising what I am doing...

I'll say this for his teaching...after years of confusion, I finally understand prototypes

In the first course with Andrew (it was jQuery Basics probably) I had mixed feelings. But while I gain more knowledge I enjoy his teaching style. :-)

I've appreciated Andrews insight on prototypes. Its been direct, clear and lacked the robotic feel that some of the other trainers have displayed. He is comfortable with his topic and that energy translates through the video. Thank you.

I did his course on Jquery basics although not as polished in terms of presentation I realised after looking at Jquery in the beginning JavaScript by another presenter that his course for me at least was very good..He teaches you how to solve problems and not syntax alone

I think Andrew is great. The subject is difficult to grasp after only one viewing. It usually takes me 2, sometimes 3 before I can actually understand how everything works and why it works. And looking stuff up bothers you? You must be some kind of genius if you think you can memorize everything and never refer to the documentation. Most professional developers I know out there always refer to documentation. Even the seasoned developers.

Well, I would like to blame technology, as it hasn't yet evolved to create a JavaScript chip which can be directly plugged into brain (in 'The Matrix' style) and Presto! I am a JavaScript pro.

Jokes apart, Andrew makes it really easy to learn. However, a student needs to make an effort to learn / get it. There's only a certain extent that a teacher can help us reach out to a new subject, the rest of the distance we have to tread.

Thanks Andrew for teaching me JavaScript gently!

i like his teaching style, he is very clear and concise, and goes over all the elements of each section very well. Plus, I think it is great that he actually responded to that guys comment. I guess that guy max felt bad cuz he stopped posting responses. whatever. Im excited to keep learning with treehouse!

There is truth to the saying - That which causes the most pain creates the most gain. In fact, this has been proven with regard to study and cognition. Keep it hurtin', Andrew.

I'm taking the SQL track with Andrew and it's wayyyyyyyyyyy better than the jquery course. I think the staff took what we said into consideration :)

I actually really enjoy Andrew's lessons up until this course. The jquery course (which I see a lot of people complaining about) was very clear to me and was incredibly helpful. This course seems particularly short in comparison. Almost rushed feeling. Maybe these are just growing pains for me. In other courses, I feel like Andrew introduces a new idea. Walks through it at a high level with an example and then in the next couple of videos the intricacies of the idea are broken down into smaller, easier to digest parcels. Then there is usually a code challenge and my absolute favorites are when Andrew or Dave give us a challenge to do on our own. I will spend an hour on these if I need to but I will smash my head against it until I feel like I fully grasp it.

Really love your courses, Andrew. Keep up the great work!

Wow, Andrew...you seem to really stir the pot. You seem to get the most responses, AND the most varied responses. For me I have finally realized I have trouble with orienting myself. The going back and forth, when things intertwine and depend on each other. I'll get it. I WILL get it. Thank you Andrew.

I think his great tbh

I have not seen the express videos. But his other stuff is good.. What is the udemy videos are they good..I did find there was a whole chunk of code in the Node.js building an dynamic site that was not explained.. It was on emitters.. When you compare his JQUERY course with three projects and detailed examination to the app documentation to another teacher his is ten times better.

In my previous post I put app I meant API

The Stephen Ginder Udemy stuff is excellent. Mostly React JS, and React Native. It is a completely different stlye of teaching, but I find that is important to learn from multiple sources, and more so when it comes to building complex dynamic systems with JS. That is why I use Treehouse and Udemy. The current videos I am doing from Andrew on Express.js are creating a number of unanswered questions, it's like he is just showing what the technology can do, and how, but there is not nessecarily "guidence" or reassurance on best practice, scaliablilty, explainations etc. I have not yet watch any other teachers videos on Express, so once I have, I will comment again to provide a comparison :)