Plato is an online curriculum created by a company called Edmentum and Plato was my choice when we decided to homeschool our two sixth grade boys for a semester last year. I want to tell you what I liked about Plato but before I do so, I must disclose that I work for a company that distributes Plato licenses. However, the views and opinions you are about to read are my own.
We used Plato for English, math, social studies, and science. Now that the boys have returned to public school (as was the plan), they are earning high grades in all their classes so Plato certainly seemed have been a good fit for them scholastically.
Here is what I liked about Plato.
Our boys focused on what they needed to learn. Each unit of learning began with a pretest to pinpoint what they already knew and what they needed to learn about the concepts and skills of the unit. If they showed in the pretest that they had already mastered something, they were exempt from those lessons. I liked this because they felt like they weren’t “wasting time” on things they already knew. Their time and energy were focused on things they needed to learn and this helped their motivation.
The lessons were well planned. There was a comfortable amount of content on each page and the lessons included questions they had to answer and activities they had to complete. This helped to keep them engaged. There were some videos within the lessons as well. Can’t say those were our favorites, but they were certainly helpful and added another layer of learning.
Hands on science activities. I was pleased with the science experiments. They included easy-to-find materials and easy-to-follow instructions. The activities supported the content of the lesson well. There were an adequate number of science activities, but not too many that they were burdensome.
There was a lot of writing. Some would see this as a drawback, but I thought it was an important component. They had to write in all subjects which I personally feel makes learning deeper. Any larger writing assignments (essays or research projects) were broken down so it was not overwhelming. (Of course, my boys may have a different opinion about all the writing! But they will be better for it in the long run. J )
Progress and grades were clearly indicated. When they logged in, they could see how much they had completed in each class and what their current grades were. I set progress goals for them each month to keep them on track. I think I used the benchmark of 20% for each class, each month. (We were only doing one semester or five months). Being kids, they quickly figured out that if they needed a little boost toward their goal, they could do a pretest and any exempted lessons would bump their progress. Not ideal and if we were to do it again, I would make it so this wasn’t an option. However, I guess I can chalk it up to a life lesson in being resourceful . . . or knowing how to work a system – yikes!
Content was extensive and they had to take notes. Again, this is probably another in the “They didn’t like it but they’ll thank me someday” category! It wasn’t always “fun” but they did learn . . . how to learn.
I could mix/match grade levels. Although they were both in grade six, one had been taking seventh-grade math. It was no problem to have him take grade seven math and grade six for the other subjects. I really appreciated that flexibility.
Now in the spirit of honesty, I will mention the few things I wish were different about our Plato experience. Both involve the mastery tests. Let me back up. Each block of learning contains a tutorial (with activities) and a mastery test to complete after the tutorial. The mastery test, obviously, is to ensure the student learned the material presented in the tutorial. That’s a great set up! However, what I wish was different was the number of questions in the mastery test and that the student could see what they got right and wrong. The mastery tests are five questions. Five! That means if you missed just two you score only a 60%. I wish there were, say, ten questions; that would seem fairer. Regarding not seeing their results, I could as their teacher see what they got right and wrong and could show them so that wasn’t a biggie, really.
So I hope this was helpful for you! If you are considering Plato, check out a demo.
Happy Learning! J
JanElle Hoffman teaches middle school math with a private, online school. She and her husband and five children call Colorado home.
