Awarding High School Credit
How to Evaluate the Completed High-School Level Work
Traditional or Work-Accomplished
There are generally two ways parents award credit: the work-accomplished method and the traditional method. It is up to the parent to determine how to award high school credits.
Work-Accomplished Method
Most homeschools award credit by the quality of the work completed, not just the time spent. Some students work at a fast pace, while others take more time. Many homeschool students are bogged down using the traditional school methods for awarding credit. Their goal is knowledge of the subject taught, not just to spend a certain amount of time on the subject.
Traditional Method — Carnegie Units
A Carnegie Unit of high school credit equals 120 hours of class work.
A Carnegie Credit Unit is a measure of time spent on the material, not the quantity of work accomplished. You may decide for yourself how much work will constitute a Carnegie Credit Unit of 160, 45-minute periods. Often teachers will simply divide the text into 160 units of work. If the work is not completed within the 45-minute period, it then becomes extra “homework” to be completed independently, not counted toward another period of instruction.
As with any educational program, high school classes may also be planned to include one day per week for labs, research, independent reading, application, review, and field trips.
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