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General Discussion

Posted by Sako Kassabian
Sako Kassabian
13,796 Points

Feedback: Improving learning on Treehouse with better objectives (code problems that you need to solve)

Couldn't find a topic on this

I've tried a couple of different online learning websites and I've found that Treehouse does the best job in the teaching aspect. However, I feel that some of the topics don't stick as well because the objectives have a couple of issues.

  1. There is no hint system in place. If something isn't done right, a lot of times you just get a red bar at the top telling you that your answer is wrong. Having a system in place that can guide users towards the answer would be helpful.

  2. The objectives are not closely related to real world issues. Just using the same code in the video with some part(s) missing does little to help the topic stick. Having a separate issue that the user needs to solve with the skills they just learned help much more. Code School does a great job at this (their videos just aren't as good). They give you different problems that you must solve and are very challenging.

Are there any other ways that these can be improved? Would love to brainstorm.

5 Answers

notf0und
notf0und
11,940 Points
notf0und
notf0und
11,940 Points

I personally would love to see more Code Challenges. Taking a quiz is just too simple, and if one didn't pay attention, one could hypothetically fail again and again until they memorize all the correct answers.

Mark Christiansen
Mark Christiansen
7,622 Points

I agree with this!

Andrew Helton
Andrew Helton
4,681 Points
Andrew Helton
Andrew Helton
4,681 Points

I'm all for the real world examples and more code challenges. It would be cool if at the end of each section of a track and at the end of the track itself they included the option of cumulative code challenges that included real world scenarios and such. Maybe they could include a picture of what they want you to build and then give you free rein to build it. Not exactly sure how they would check your code since there are multiple ways of doing the same thing. I'll leave that for them to figure out :)

Carman A
Carman A
7,672 Points
Carman A
Carman A
7,672 Points

Not giving hints prepares you for real world scenarios... you don't know an answer to a problem so you find it on google :)

Sako Kassabian
Sako Kassabian
13,796 Points

While there is some truth to that, I think that for newer programmers it is really helpful. Even for some seasoned people as well.

Carman A
Carman A
7,672 Points
Carman A
Carman A
7,672 Points

Although I do agree the quizzes could be harder. Or at least make the wrong answer not so obvious.

Carman A
Carman A
7,672 Points
Carman A
Carman A
7,672 Points

But at the end of the day if you wanna learn your gonna learn no matter how easy challenges/quizzes may be