Students can now regain credits online.
Photo by Mia Nogueira
Throughout TJ, an expectation is shared by all Spartans to graduate on time with the credits that are required for college. To help students meet this expectation, TJ is now collaborating with the online systems APEX and PLATO in order to give these students the chance to redeem lost credits.
“This is our first year with APEX, and our second with PLATO,” said Intervention Teacher Wauneta Vann. “All of credit recovery is run by those two companies.” Vann, along with Intervention Teacher Liz Buffington, provide access to these systems all day in the Tutoring Center (room 4). “The room is usually filled with students doing credit recovery,” said Vann.
The process used by APEX and PLATO is relatively simple. Each course unit begins with a pretest, which consists of about 50 questions. If a student takes the pretest and does well, they may skip that unit. Otherwise, the unit goes on to a tutorial, in which the concepts of the unit are discussed thoroughly. Afterwards, there is a series of small application tests. Based on questions missed during these tests, the program recommends sections in the unit tutorial to go back to and work on. After this, there is the final mastery test, in which the student is tested on the entire unit. Each course consists of multiple units.
While the companies chiefly maintain the systems, Vann and Buffington strive to issue credit recovery fully and effectively. “We did full training with the systems,” said Vann. “Mrs. Buffington and I try to implement an environment that would make credit recovery more successful.”
Despite the immense contribution of both companies and trained teachers, credit recovery is no walk in the park. “You have to be motivated. It’s not like you can go web surfing,” said Vann, who added that the systems are also more difficult than simply passing the course.
Due to its difficulty, along with its tediousness, credit recovery is not always entirely successful. “Last year we had more people not complete the course than complete it,” said Vann. “It is hard, and kids get discouraged. I think we’ll be more successful this year with APEX.” In addition, Vann and Buffington hope to achieve 80% completion of the courses this year. Presently, there are over 100 students enrolled in credit recovery.
The courses APEX and PLATO are available to students who have been approved by a counselor and are applicable for courses at a cost of $25 to enroll. With two trained teachers behind it, along with hours of availability, obtaining lost credit is now under more skillful management than ever.
