Team Treehouse review

More than getting familiar with different coding language, Team Treehouse can allow you to get a junior job in  a startup or a tech company. Providing that you are motivated and eager to learn, Team Treehouse is the tool for beginners to step up your coding with the right foundations.

Team Treehouse review factsheet

Course type	Coding, Design and Business
Subjects	Android, Business, CSS , Design, Development tool, HTML, IOS, Java, Javascript, PHP, Python, Ruby and Wordpress.
# of courses	100+
Professors	Professionals in the industry. You can learn more on their blog, Teachers spotlight
Average course time	4-50 hours
Student level	Beginners - Medium to more advanced
Demography	All ages
Costs	Basic: 25$/month Pro: 49$/month
Certification	You earn badges which are displayed on a public profile on site.

Overview

What I like the most is the easy way to understand classes. They have also made a great effort into classified courses to make it easy to find relevant courses as each topic is divided into categories with recommendations of courses to start with courses that fits your needs.

And there is a color code to know which category courses belong to. Each category is composed of differents steps,usually with a few videos and challenges where you need to show your coding skills as well as answering questions relevant to what was covered in the videos.

Courses are easy to follow and you start right where you left off when you log back into the platform.

To succeed in this course, I am recommended to start with their C++. The website is beautifully designed to be intuitive and fun to use. There is a code of colors for each type of course. And you can also see that they are classified to your  level of expertise – Beginner/ Intermediate / Pro.

Challenges that required to show your coding skills on the left. Quizzes which are multiple questions on the right

For challenges to be completed, there is normally just one code answer that is excepted although several answers could be right. This can be frustrating because you go back and forth without knowing which right answer to put. On the other hand, Team Treehouse has been very successful in building a forum community, so when you struggle with a question, it is usually answered by the community.

Gamification and motivation to the next level

Team Treehouse is great at gamifying their courses and motivating students. As a student, you always know where you are, how much left you have to learn to complete a course,what the necessary steps to reach your goals are.

Also for each course completed, you receive a congratulations email with what an overview of what you learned, an explanation on how you can capitalize on that knowledge as well as an overview of your next learning steps. They have figured out how to make you focus on your learning.

[pullquote align=right] Team Treehouse seem to have everything figured out for you so you just have to focus on your learning. [/pullquote]

I also like their  system of badges and points that you earn when you complete a course or when you  successfully contribute to the forum. Badges also serve as certification since they display on your public profile. (See mine here ).

Notes and suggestions

Ease of use	1) Design is clear and empower the user to learn. 2) Easy to jump back to where you left off 3) Easy to follow progress and achievements
Content quality	1) Short executive videos carefully screened and prepared by experts. 2) Multiple choice questions. 3) Code challenges that asks you to code based on what you just learned in videos.
Completeness of features	1) Courses are complete and engaging. My suggestions would be to redirect the learner to more code challenges so he can capitalize better on his learning.
Feedback and interaction	1) Feedback through badge points and emails. Very motivating 2) Community is active, You can get advice even for things even outside of courses (such as your personal website). I had a CSS questions that was answered in 15 minutes. 3) I would have like to have feedback on the answers I got wrong in quizzes and challenges. You are allowed to get one or two questions wrong to be allowed to go to the next steps. I would have liked to have feedback on my wrong answers.
Learning experience	1) Learning experience is very rewarding. Treehouse want you to complete all the courses on the platform. 2) Community is engaging and enhance the learning experience. People want you to think and learn rather than giving you the solution. People are willing not to give you solutions but help you learn.
Price/Time	1) I think the price is relatively fair. As a beginner its hard to see the true value of the Pro version but makes sense when you start needing advanced courses. 2) I like the ability to pause the membership for whatever reasons.

Best use

My recommendation is to have the challenge next to the video to make it easier to complete it. Otherwise, you sometimes need to see the video over again before you can advance and you loose time!

Having a context where to apply the knowledge you learn is crucial. If you are taking courses to build a WordPress website, then I suggest you create a WordPress website while learning.

The forum is great to get answers. But is also great to use in order to see that you are not the only one struggling.  It is motivating to see that you are not alone.  I also found myself answering questions in the forum (when I had the ability) and it helped me rehearse my learning.

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Did you like this review? Do you have a personal experience to suggest? Comment below !