Stars Suite Curriculum
Our curriculum is divided into two main components: credit courses and preparatory courses. The credit courses are found under Novel, our library of middle and high school courses. Novel offers course delivery modes for generating original credit and for credit recovery. The Prep Courses are review and remediation courses designed to prepare a student for a particular test or educational pre-requisite. These courses are High School Prep, TestPak, and GED Duo. The Prep Courses can be delivered in either the Standard format or the Adaptive Assessment format, which tailors the course to the student’s specific educational needs. For an in depth description of the curriculum and content, visit our main site.
Novel™
Novel is our grade 6-12 curriculum, designed to be taken for credit. Intended for the middle school, high school, and adult learner, topics include over 40 courses covering language arts, math, science, and social Studies. Novel can provide a solution for credit recovery, dropout reduction, original credit generation, summer schools, alternative programs, homebound learners, supplementary courseware, credit acceleration, and more. For a full list of the Novel courseware, click here.
High School Prep™
Middle school students often have a difficult time transitioning into high school, especially when they’ve missed key concepts along the way. High School Prep bridges the education gap many students experience during this pivotal time by assessing student needs and providing individualized courses to help them catch up and succeed in high school. This prep course contains middle school level material designed to bring the student to grade 8.9 proficiency. Topics include language arts, math, and science. The most popular uses for High School Prep are freshman academies, eighth-grade assessment, remediation, and summer school.
TestPak™
In many cases, a student’s ultimate high school success depends on passing a state exit exam. Often, tackling the test can be an overwhelming and frustrating task. Through TestPak, your students will master the concepts they’ll face on the exam. TestPak focuses on key testable objectives in language arts and math. Additionally, students gain test-taking confidence through a series of practice activities imbedded in their personalized courses. The most common uses for TestPak are state test preparation, college prep, remediation, ability assessment, and extra practice material for other courses.
GED Duo™
The motivation is there, but is your student really ready for the GED exam? Designed in consultation with national GED experts, GED Duo’s structure and content mirror the GED exam. After administering the TABE test or equivalent assessment, you decide if your students need the Pre-GED Track to boost their skills to the ninth-grade level before preparing for the GED, or the GED Prep Track to immediately begin GED preparation.
Pre-GED contains middle school level material to help the student master key concepts in language arts, math, and science. GED Prep is specifically designed to reinforce the skills and abilities necessary for the GED exam—very different than those required in high school testing. GED Prep covers language arts, math, science, and social studies.
Course Delivery Methods
Novel
Standard Course
Designed for students requiring original credit, Standard courses include all the material for the course; typically 18 lessons and accompanying submissions, and a randomly generated midterm and final exam. This course type can also be used for “spot-remediation”: if the student needs additional help or practice in specific areas within the subject, the teacher can assign the students only to those lessons and submissions that meet the requirements.
Pre-Assessment Standard
Typically used in credit recovery situations, this course type provides a randomly generated initial assessment based on the Novel curriculum for the selected course. The assessment identifies areas in which the student shows competency, as well as deficiency. The administrator for the site sets the parameters of the initial assessment test: the percentage of material to assess and what is accepted as “mastery” for a particular section. Students receive an individualized course of study based on the results of the initial assessment. This prescriptive syllabus consists of the lessons and corresponding submissions in which the student did not meet the mastery level set by the school. Once the student has completed the assigned courseware, the teacher releases a randomly generated final exam, which tests the material covered on the student’s individualized syllabus. Students enrolled in this mode generally have some experience in the subject area – whether they failed a class, have fallen behind, or are transferring from another school.
Credit Recovery Acceleration Method
This delivery method provides a randomly generated initial assessment based on the Novel™ curriculum for the selected course. The system generates a prescriptive course of study based on the results of the initial assessment. The individualized course of study consists of lessons (without submissions) in which the student did not meet the mastery level set by the school. After reading these lessons, students take a follow-up test that generates a new course of study. This process is repeated until all lessons are mastered. NOTE: This course type is meant for supplemental review or self-study course for students. It is completely self-paced, including the follow-up tests, which can be accessed at any time by the student. It is not meant to be taken for original credit or credit recovery. For credit, students should be tested on the material via another method.
Prep Courses
Standard Course
When offering a prep course, the Standard delivery option signifies that all of the material relating to the specific subject area is available. The teacher can assign everything or specific lessons and submissions. The teacher also has the option of offering a comprehensive exam. For all of the prep courses, both the submissions and the final test are randomized. This course type is most often used to offer supplementary coursework; if the student needs additional help or practice in specific topic areas, the teacher can assign the particular lessons and submissions that meet the need.
Adaptive Assessment
The Adaptive Assessment course type is a review and remediation delivery mode to help prepare students for a particular test or educational pre-requisite. In this course type, students take a randomly generated initial assessment and receive a prescribed course of study. Items which the student has mastered are marked as “Complete,” while non-mastered topics are marked as “New.” Students work through the new concepts and then take a comprehensive follow-up assessment, covering both new and completed topics to ensure they have truly mastered the content. Based on the follow-up assessment, the program will then regenerate a course of study, with new randomized submissions. Students can continue cycling through the program until all concepts are mastered. In this course type, the mastery level for topics within the assessments is preset at 80%.