I'm a little late to the thread, so here comes another one of my mega posts...
All of our students are adults who work full time, so their time for studying is limited ... what timeline we should expect...
When I see this, we are asking for a time frame for something where we don't have a commitment from the student on time. I'm not sure you can set a time based on that - so it may be that you have to set the timeline yourself and encourage students to meet that.
From my experience, it will vary how long someone can complete a self-paced course given their own situation. The best thing to do is to make sure they are making steady progress. Whether through check ins, or the back end of the reporting functions, focus on those who are not making progress and may fall off.
This is key.
That is should the A+ certification be structured in a two-exam format? As we all know, this is the only CompTIA certification that requires passing two exams in order to become certified. That made sense, back in the day when one of the exams focused on hardware and the other exam focused on software.
With A+, we are dealing with students who are at that 6m-18m level and the body of knowledge covered in the A+ (given the 30% overlap between the two), to me, is very daunting for that experience level. I think it would remain better as a two test battery. I think if you try to make it one test, it might be too overwhelming.
Simply looking at pictures does not provide the touchy-feely needed to understand ... but [they] cannot relate what they read to the real-world situations. Perhaps you could create a couple "projects" such as install a hard drive in a laptop so they get the experience of reading the tech docs and following the procedures.
I totally agree - the real hands on aspect of training always is better than simulations and show-and-tell picture styles. With more schools wanting to do more with less, it becomes incumbent on them to integrate that hands on - BUT - it's also more expensive and time consuming, which is why many organizations elect to not do it.
This should really be looked into, looking at the objectives some content are similar. If combining the exams into one cannot work, it could be good to split them into two certifications, one for Hard ware, one for Software.
Not sure I agree on this point. A+ has the virtue of being a long running certification with worldwide recognition for IT professionals in that sub-two year space. I remember Microsoft doing something like this when trying to make the MCITP out of the MCSA, from the MCSE materials. Needless to say, that effort didn't work out for Redmond. People were saying, "what the heck is this 'mcitp' thing?" and interest waned. I predict the same thing if CompTIA split the A+ and made two new certs.
Well, that's that...lol
/r
