Congrats on taking the next step in your educational journey with Sophia! Whether you’re about to start your courses or you’re just signing up, you’re probably curious about the course structure and how we define success at Sophia.
This guide has all the information you need to understand how Sophia courses work, the types of assessments we use to evaluate your learning, and how they factor into your final grade. Here’s everything you need to know about taking Sophia courses – plus some helpful tips to maximize your success.
How Is Learning Assessed?
Sophia’s courses are competency based, which means that rather than based on a defined term or being graded on a curve, you go at your own pace and you’re done if and when you show you’ve met the expectations for each competency.
Sophia provides a structure that provides you with all the learning material you need, low stakes practice activities to get ready and exams and assignments that allow you to show what you’ve learned. And if you were not successful the first time on an exam or assignment, you have another chance before moving on.
Sophia offers 60+ courses in a range of subject areas, all with a similar user interface. Many of our courses are designed with a problem-based learning model that includes both theoretical and practical scenarios for in-depth learning.
Types of Assessments
Sophia grades are based on three types of assessments that test your mastery of concepts using problem-based learning, summative evaluation, and a project-based deliverable. Here are the types of assessments, how they factor into your grade, and some tips for success:
Challenges
Sophia courses use a problem-based learning model comprising both theory and practical knowledge to enhance critical thinking. Each Challenge has an average of 5-10 multiple-choice questions focused on real-world application of concepts to demonstrate your understanding.
Tips for Success
- Challenges aren’t timed, so you can take as much time as you need.
- Each Challenge is split with questions on the left side of the screen and lessons to help you answer the questions on the right side of the screen.
- You have three attempts for each Challenge topic. If you miss the first question, you’ll get a second or third chance until you’re off to the next topic. If you miss all three, you will miss that point.
- If you do miss a question, look to the bottom of the screen to find the answer and an explanation as to why yours was right or wrong.
- Challenges aren’t weighted as heavily as other assessments and can be reset once by a Learning Coach to try again.
- Take the time to make notes on concepts that were difficult or information you may forget. These concepts will be important for the next assessment: Milestones.
Milestones
Milestones are summative assessments that test your mastery of the course concepts in a unit. These have a set time limit, which is displayed on your Course Dashboard. At the end of some courses, there is also a Final Milestone that is the culmination of the previous work.
Tips for Success
- All Milestones are open note and open book, so you can access your notes and information from the course during your test.
- You are allowed to use personal notes to guide your test taking, so be sure to mark down specific lessons, formulas, concepts, and key terms in advance.
- Practice, practice, practice! There are practice Milestones that you can use to test your knowledge and get more comfortable with test taking on Sophia. You can take practice Milestones as many times as you wish. Many courses also include study tools like flashcards and glossaries of key terms.
- If a question has you stumped, skip it. You can mark questions to come back to later, ensuring that you use your time wisely.
- Timed tests like Milestones must be done in one sitting – there is no option to pause the timer. However, if technical difficulties like a crash or freeze affect your test, you can close out Sophia and reload it to continue where you left off. The timer will continue to tick down while you’re reloading, though.
- If an emergency comes up and you have to step away from your computer, but you have already started your test, you have options. Just contact your Learning Coach when you’re ready to take the test and we can reopen it for you.
- If you don’t score as well as you’d like, you can retake the Milestone by clicking the Retake button in the top right corner of the Results screen. The higher score of your attempts will be registered in the system.
Touchstones
Touchstones are project-based or written assessments that help you apply your mastery of concepts to a real-world problem. They are submitted for manual grading and must be original and unique. You can work on Touchstones at any time, but you must complete all prior assessments before submitting a Touchstone for grading.
Tips for Success
- Read the instructions carefully! These instructions are thoughtfully crafted to be clear and digestible with multiple sections containing key information. Every Touchstone is different, so make sure you read (and reread) the instructions to ensure you understand the expectations.
- Each Touchstone has a grading rubric with detailed information about the expectations and requirements for an exceptional Touchstone score. Review it to ensure you understand what you’re aiming for.
- Check the requirements list at the bottom of the instructions. This section has a concise list of important parts of the Touchstone that may be missed, so make sure you can check all the boxes before submitting your assignment for grading.
- If you have a specific question, contact the Touchstone Team! They are not available via phone, but you can get in touch using the Help Center on the Sophia website.
- If you need additional help, tutoring is available for some courses with Touchstones. Just click “Access a Tutor” in the top right corner of the course Dashboard to speak with someone directly.
How Are Assignments Graded?
Challenges and Milestones are a simple question-and-answer format that automatically register correct and incorrect answers for grading. Milestones carry three times the weight of Challenges for your final score.
Touchstones are project-based deliverables that are evaluated by expert graders. Your course syllabus shows how much the Touchstone contributes to your overall course grade.
Finally, several of Sophia’s science courses have a laboratory component, which include Activities in the Labster learning environment. Activities center around a simulated lab scenario with a series of questions to answer, or practical problems to solve. Here too, you have multiple attempts to answer the questions and earn points. You can leave and return to Activities whenever you want, and retakes are unlimited.
Sophia’s science lab courses are designed to be a complement to the lecture – just like an in-person science course with a lab – for a robust investigation into the concepts in the natural sciences.
What Happens If I Fail a Sophia Milestone or Sophia Course?
Even if you studied hard, it’s possible that you may not perform as well as you’d like on every assignment. But with Sophia, you have an option to dust yourself off and try again! You can retake Milestone assessments, resubmit Touchstones, and retake courses for another opportunity to earn a passing grade and grasp the material for your future courses.
Are You Ready to Excel?
Now that you know all the ins and outs of Sophia courses, it’s time to put it into action. Get started on your course or try out a course firsthand up to the first assessment. Start your free trial today!
