How Do I Know My Child is Working?

Open your child’s courses frequently – check in.

Your Parent Desk is meant to keep you “in-the-know” from a behind-the-scenes perspective (no hovering, no smothering). We understand that many teens enjoy their independence and may become defensive when asked, “What did you do in school today?” You have the ability to log in and view as much detail as you feel you need to see that your child is progressing in school.

We recommend that you review your child’s Progress Reports regularly. If you have a concern, or just want to see your child’s work, open their courses. Read their lessons and the teacher’s responses to them. Wouldn’t it be great to say to your child, “I see that you are making great progress in Biology! What are you learning about now?” Imagine that you might even have a conversation about photosynthesis. We don’t encourage over involvement, (no helicopter moms, please) but we have found that when parents are aware of their child’s schoolwork, their child will stay engaged in school.

Course Activity Calendar

This tool will give you at-a-glance knowledge of your child’s engagement in school. You can see the overall calendar which includes all courses. You can also use the Courses pull-down to see your child’s activity in each of her courses.

• Dark green days indicate that assignments were submitted. Hover your cursor over the day, and you will see which assignments were submitted.
• Light green days indicate that lessons were opened. Some lessons are longer than others, and it is common for students to be working on them for several days before they are ready to submit them. Don’t worry if you see several light green days in a row. Your child is working!
• Yellow days indicate that your child logged in, but did not access any courses. This could mean that they are working offline on research, or reading their novel for English.
• White days indicate that your child did not log in.

You can see that Brilliant is actively engaged in her courses! Way to go Brilliant!

Want to take a closer look?

From the Parent Desk, in the Courses In Progress section, click on the name of a course. Here you can open lessons and review your child’s work. Below is an example of Brilliant’s Geometry Class File Cabinet.

At the top, you will see Brilliant’s Lessons In Progress. This is where your child will start every day. These are the lessons that need revision. It is a good practice to have no more than 4 lessons in progress. Students move more quickly through a course when they make revisions first before beginning a new lesson. Note – the Teacher Message is not graded, and will remain in the Lesson In Progress throughout the time your child is in the course. This is where they will write to their teacher if they have a question about the course.  Here we see that Lesson 5 -Review: Synthesize Lessons 1 – 4 in In Progress. We also see that she submitted her post on 6/8/21 at 4:08 pm. Her teacher replied on 4/8/21 at 10:12 pm. In the Status box, you can see that Brilliant needs to respond.

What else do we learn from the Class File Cabinet?

Progress Bar

You will also see the Progress Bar which indicates the percent of the course completed. This feature has been very motivational to students. Brilliant has been in the course for about a month and has complete 14% of the course. Check her work and talk with her about sticking to a schedule. If she is struggling in a course, she needs to communicate with her teacher and ask questions to get help. Her teachers really do want to hear from her so they can offer suggestions, or additional resources to help her succeed. Since starting the course on 5/18/21, Brilliant has completed 4 lessons and has 1 lesson in progress. She is making great progress.

Course Average

Although Brilliant has completed just 4 lessons, she may be taking her time to really understand a challenging course. She has an A- average (to date) in the course. Great grades Brilliant!

Plagiarism and Citation

This link gives details about Plagiarism and how to avoid it. Excellent examples of MLA formatted citations are provided. Students are expected to conduct research on many lessons, and they are expected to cite their sources using MLA format.

Full Course Lessons

Notice the credit value of the course. Remember, many of our courses have both a .5 credit and 1.0 credit options. This is where you can confirm the credit value your child is taking. Click on this link to see the syllabus for the course. Below are the lessons for Geometry

Geometry Lessons: (1 credit course)

Teacher Message

Unit 1

Lesson 1: Naming Geometric Elements complete

Lesson 2: Inductive and Deductive Reasoning complete

Lesson 3: Conditional Statements and Venn Diagrams  complete

Lesson 4: Supplementary and Complementary Angles complete

Lesson 5: Review: Synthesize Lessons 1-4

Unit 2

Lesson 6: Parallelism

Lesson 7: Polygons

Lesson 8: Similar Polygons

The Unit 2 review lesson will open up after you have a grade for Lessons 1-8.

Lesson 9: Review: Synthesize Lessons 6-8

Unit 3

Lesson 10: Triangles

Lesson 11: Introduction to Trigonometry

Lesson 12: Pythagorean Theorem

Lesson 13: Special Right Triangles

The Unit 3 review lesson will open up after you have a grade for Lessons 1-13.

Lesson 14: Review: Synthesize Lessons 10-13

Unit 4

Lesson 15: Circles: Chords, Radii, and Arcs

Lesson 16: Circles: Circumference and Arc Length

Lesson 17: Area of Circles and Sectors

Lesson 18: Area of Squares, Rectangles, and Rhombuses

The Unit 4 review lesson will open up after you have a grade for Lessons 1-18.

Lesson 19: Review: Synthesize Lessons 15-18

Unit 5

Lesson 20: Area of Triangles, Parallelograms, and Trapezoids

Lesson 21: Areas of Polygons

Lesson 22: Surface Area and Volume of Spheres, Cylinders, and Cones

Lesson 23: Area and Volume of Prisms and Pyramids

The Unit 5 review lesson will open up after you have a grade for Lessons 1-23.

Lesson 24: Review: Synthesize Lessons 20-23

Unit 6

Lesson 25: The Cartesian Coordinate System and the Distance Formula

Lesson 26: Transformations

Lesson 27: Proofs

Lesson 28: Review: Synthesize Lessons 25-27

Lesson 29: Skills Assessment