Dear Commissioner Lowe –
I need to complete the remaining 18 hours of my mandated 24 hour Continuing Education (CE) classes by February 28.
As real estate agents are prone to do, I’ve been putting this off until the last minute. I did take six hours of outstanding live CE classes earlier this year, but as I sipped my cup of java this morning and looked through upcoming available classes, I quickly realized my procrastination meant I was going to have to finish my CE hours online. As much as I believe in education, there simply isn’t enough time left in the month for me to sit in a classroom for 18 hours.
Ms. Lowe, I know you are well aware that the daily maximum limit of completing CE is nine hours. That makes perfect sense, as it would not be conducive to have a “student” sitting in class for more than nine hours in any given day. That’s a good rule, whether classes are attended in person, or virtually on the world wide web.
Want to guess how long it took me to actually complete my three classes today, giving me a total of nine hours of CE credit?
Go ahead, guess…
34 minutes.
Yep, I spent 34 minutes today online, and got credit for 9 hours of CE classes — three hours each in Disclosure Law, Agency Law, and Fair Housing.
Thirty-four minutes. The first class took 13 minutes to complete, the second took 12 minutes, and the last took 9 minutes. That nine minutes was on Fair Housing, arguably the most important of the three courses.
A few months ago, I took Defensive Driving online because… well because I tend to drive too fast and needed traffic school to take a speeding ticket off my record.
That class required me to sit in front of a computer for six or eight hours. I don’t remember exactly how long, although it felt like a week.
Nine minutes of my time to get three hours of credit in Fair Housing.
Appalling, isn’t it?
I know Arizona used to require online CE classes be “timed” — so that you couldn’t advance screens of text until enough time had lapsed for you to actually read the text. At least that is the theory behind timed sessions. That’s what the defensive driving class did to force me to sit at a computer for hours on end. (Just between you and me, I didn’t read much of that material either. I worked on my second monitor and advanced the traffic school material when it would let me).
These real estate CE classes presented a screen of text, but there was nothing that prevented me from clicking immediately to the “quiz” for that section. There I was presented with four to seven questions. If I got any questions wrong, I could just guess until I got them right. Then I’d skip the text of the next section, and take the next “quiz”. Once I got through all those modules, I was presented with the course “exam”. That consisted of one “essay question” (and I use the term “essay” VERY liberally) and then I was presented with multiple choice questions. Those were word-for-word, in order even, to the “quizzes” I’d already completed.
While the system did prevent me from going back and reviewing the quizzes, it didn’t prevent me from taking a screen shot of all the correct answers.
But to be honest, I didn’t really need the screen shots very much. Here is a sample question from the Fair Housing class:
I asked my daughter if she knew the answer to this question. She’s a senior in high school and wicked smart, but I did get “the eye roll” and she replied, “Dad, I learned that in second grade.”
How exactly does “learning” this protect the public?
(Of note, I actually did learn something in the Fair Housing class. I learned that Mississippi was the last state to ratify the 13th amendment that outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude. Mississippi ratified the 13th amendment in 1995, some 130 years after it was first proposed. I found that trivia quite interesting, though again how the answer to that trivia question helps protect the public is beyond me. Now if I ever wind up on Jeopardy!, that’s a different story.)
Do I Feel Guilty for Completing 9 Hours of CE in 34 Minutes?
No, not really. As I already stated, I am a proponent of continuing education. We in the real estate industry need to continuously learn, to stay on top of all sorts of developments, rules, practices and law in our field. But you see, I actually spend hundreds of hours every year learning, “continuing my education”, developing my skills and knowledge. I attend conferences. I attend sessions at my local, state and nationals associations that educate me. Heck, I once paid for and took an in-person CE class when I didn’t “need the hours” just to hear AAR’s Legal Counsel Michelle Lind speak on current legal issues. The proctors in that class were stunned when I waived off my CE certificate. “You mean you took this class when you didn’t have to?”
Of course I did.
So no, I don’t feel guilty about blowing through Fair Housing in nine minutes. I simply took advantage of the system.
A deeply flawed system.
I passed the quizzes. I passed that hellish “essay question” of “Why were Fair Housing laws created?”. Seriously? I’ve been in real estate for over seven years. I’m a Designated Broker. If I can’t answer that question in my sleep, I shouldn’t be in real estate.
(Incidentally, my “essay” answer, that is supposedly reviewed by the school before I am awarded my CE certificate, was along the lines of, “Fair Housing laws were created to prevent discrimination against certain ‘classes’ of people. The law has been amended and the classes expanded several times.” Whew, that was a brutal question! But at least the “reviewer” was on the ball as I had my certificate in my email within five minutes of completing the “exam”.)
Are Online Classes Evil?
No, not inherently. I once took an online graduate course as part of my (never completed) MBA program and it was one of the most difficult, challenging and rewarding classes I’ve ever taken. Online learning can work. “Seat time” in a physical class does not ensure learning takes place. I’m certified to teach a Continuing Ed class and even though it consistently gets rave reviews I can assure you that some are there only to “get their hours” and they learn nothing. You can’t force someone to learn. All you can do is offer good material in an environment that is conducive to learning, with good instructors (or developers and systems in the case of online delivery) and provide an opportunity for learning.
The current online system doesn’t really do that. Maybe the material is good, but the delivery system practically begs for “cheating”. Humans being humans, and agents being busy, the vast majority of time we are going to take the shortest, most efficient route to getting something like required CE hours out of the way.
I don’t know the solution to this problem. Timing systems help. In my traffic school class I actually found myself reading some of the material because I could not advance the screens quickly. A complete revamp of the presented text might help. Let’s face it, the history lesson that was Fair Housing, while I enjoy studying history, does absolutely zero to protect the consumer or help the real estate agent.
I have a hunch the answer is going to be, “No more online CE hours,” and that will be a band-aid to a more systemic issue. Adult education is a complex field, and it requires trained instructors and professionally developed course material. Banishing online courses to the ether isn’t the solution. Developing effective training material, holding “train the trainer” sessions, a more stringent course approval process, increased auditing of existing courses — all that (and more) needs to be done.
Education is critical. The classes I took today are ludicrous. Something needs to be done.
The Phoenix Real Estate Guy was started by Jay Thompson, and I have a little blogging problem... he liked to say...
Jay, on behalf of those of us who know people who have similarly enjoyed abbreviated online CE classes … please shut the hell up. 🙂
I always enjoy seeing how fast I can go through online courses.
From the useless bits of knowledge department; I learned long ago that there are 43,560 square feet of land in an acre. No one has ever asked me that question but if they ever do……I’m ready.
@JimLee
And the way to remember that little factoid is “7-11” 4+3 =7 and 5+6+0= 11 heheheh
@JimLee Hi Jim- i do get asked that question a lot! it is one of the few facts my brain retained.
@JimLee Pretty cool mnemonic Paul, thanks.
Taking 9 minutes or taking 180 minutes, which is better if the material is the same? I’m a big fan of education. I don’t care if the education I get has CE hours. Frankly, I’d rather my education, in most cases, didn’t have hours attached. Fewer hoops jumped through by the educator may mean I’m getting something I’d pay for because of its content not its certification. I don’t quite know where to stand on quick CE hours. If it’s to test that you’ve reached a certain, basic level of understanding I’m not sure why longer is better and yet I see how absurd it is too. My dream online CE is Usteam or spreecast where you can participate. I understand that some folks won’t participate and that you can’t ensure the education but, please…I can’t police daydreaming either.
Man, oh man, you’re a genius at stirring the pot!
This will be a fun one to watch. Grab the popcorn, sit down and enjoy.
If things get slow send an email to some other “live” CE class instructors.
Full disclosure: I’ve never done an online real estate class. I like the in-person classes and usually learn a ton.
Online classes rock! I can’t believe you got through the CE in 34 minutes! Congrats.
It was earlier the same “tough tests” in Sweden; we had three hours to write the tests, I was usually finished in 20 minutes. Nowadays it has become much better and most people need their 3 hours.
Thank you Jay for your letter. Although it wasn’t one of our courses, I’m sorry you had a poor experience online. I would encourage you to share your feedback with the course provider. We(The CE Shop) always appreciate customer feedback as it helps us continue to improve our product and student experience, hopefully they will feel the same. As others have shared, distance learning can be terrific when courses are developed thoughtfully with solid delivery and content development standards. The Commissioner has taken considerable steps to increase the quality standards for distance learning courses, thank you to the ADRE staff for your efforts, I know that it is a monumental task to screen courses the way you do. The new standards and renewal process with ADRE will filter out (over time) the low quality products that Jay encountered. We have and will continue to dedicate considerable resources to developing quality content and demonstrate our long-term commitment to education in our industry. For those licensees, brokers, and educators who are successful today, you get what I’m saying about commitment to the industry”¦you’ve earned your stripes the last several years. Education is like much of life, you get out of it what you put into it. Thank you to all those who continue to invest.
@Michael McAllister Michael, I bought a large package of courses at The CE Shop. Of all those classes, only ONE was good, a short sale class authored by Michelle Lind. The rest were substandard, to say the least.
I find your comments about ADRE standards very interesting. I am an educator. I work with many types of distance learning. I personally complained about the quality of your classes and the speed with which your courses could be taken. Your solution was to INSTALL A TIMER and increase the seat time in the class to comply with ADRE regulations. That does NOT address quality of content issues.
A timer does not add content. A timer is a nuisance when a course section is completed quickly and a student has to hit a button repeatedly to keep a course live. A timer, used well, is a good device. A timer on a CE Shop class is a pain in the ass.
So I guess I will be another fly in the Dept of Real Estate’s punch bowel.
The question on the emancipation proclamation does not have the correct answer offered. This is something that has been wrongly taught for years but can easily be remedied by reading the proclamation. It appears this was not done by the course writer. I guess if like the state pre-license exam you are supposed to pick the most correct answer, “A” would be close but the fact is, Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves, no matter their color, in those States that were considered in rebellion against the United States. States not considered to be in rebellion were allowed to keep their slaves.
I don’t like online classes for several reasons but at least the course can be easily observed by the Arizona Department of Real Estate and this kind of mis-information should have been caught.
I’m guilty of breezing through online courses without reading or studying the material. I think all of us might be. When i took my real estate courses to get my license, I went to live courses for the main classes I needed to take just for this reason. I knew I needed to learn the material in order to pass the exam and the only way I could be sure to do this was sit in a classroom
Although I thoroughly enjoy reading ALL of your posts I think I am going to have to add this one to my list of favorites. I too have enjoyed the ability to complete somewhere between 15-17 hours of CE credit in less than 2 hours (spread over two days of course) so part of me wants to hammer you for bringing this to the attention of ADRE. However, considering the fact that they have allowed tens of thousands of real estate agents to obtain licenses with a very minuscule amount of practical real estate knowledge (thanks to their very *thorough* licensing courses) I suspect that very little will be done to remedy the situation. I’m parked here to see the discussion though…beer in hand
Interesting is the fact that my on-line courses are timed, I can’t take the exam until I’ve gone 2:30. I do find that I get done with “reading” every screen in about 30 minutes and wait 2 hours doing other things until I can take the exam. Honestly, that how the live classes are as well. Our education system is broken, not just the real estate one, which is based on our kids school system. It’s time to raise the bar, increase the material challenge and take on new training methods, such as interactive training, where a concept is explained to you and you can see videos about that concept or have an interactive lab (thinking the new iBook technology from Apple here). I’ve been an advocate to more required training, but honestly, we need to fix the method before we add more.
Hello Jay,
I too procrastinate. What is the name of the company, I have two more classes to take tonight & 30 minutes sounds like music to my ears.
Anyone else care to share the secret to me practicing RE tomorrow.
Hi Jay I would like to do this but I would like to know more about this class.
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34 minutes!! That’s amazing, It was a great experience to read about this. Thanks for the share. Keep posting such interesting stuffs.
Hello MRV,
You still had 17,280 minutes of time left until the end of the month, why so early?
Hi there! This blog post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my previous roommate! He constantly kept preaching about this. I am going to forward this article to him. Fairly certain he’s going to have a very good read. Thanks for sharing!