Submitting Lessons by Mail

A few courses in the program are not available to do online. These are hand-graded courses that require you to write out answers and mail to Washtenaw.

Follow all instructions in the study guides to understand what work needs to be shown in your mailed lesson quizzes, including detailed math and drawing work.

As you work on your hand-graded lessons, please ensure the following:

• Your work is on separate pieces of paper. Do not mail in your study guides.
• You are using the pre-printed answer sheets or graph paper if supplied with kit. - You identify answers by the question number in the same order as presented in your quiz. You do not need to re-write the questions.
• Your answers are printed with pencil or ink as clearly as possible, using your best handwriting. Any corrections or notes made should be clear to the grader.
• You are answering most, if not all, quiz questions. Submissions received with less than 60% of all questions attempted and/or display a lack of serious effort will not be given grades and quarterly lesson credit.
• Your name and student ID number are printed on EVERY page of your work.
• The course and lesson numbers are printed on EVERY page of your work.
• Each lesson is accompanied with its appropriate Scantron.
• Your loose papers are kept neat and submitted together in order. Stapling or paper-clipping your pages together is allowed, but not required. Washtenaw reserves the right to reject lessons that do not meet the above guidelines!

What is a Scantron?

When you are enrolled in a hand-graded course, you will be mailed an enrollment letter and packet of scantrons. Scantrons are computer-generated answer pages that are primarily used to grade multiple-choice final exams by machine.

So why are Scantrons needed for hand-graded courses? Scantrons are also used to help provide speed and accuracy when recording your hand-graded lesson score and help reduce human errors when awarding credit to the appropriate students. Scantrons also help us quickly create a digital scan of your written work so that Washtenaw has a copy kept in its digital archives.

Each Scantron has a specific course and lesson number printed on it. For your benefit, it is required that the assigned Scantron accompanies each hand-graded lesson you submit, so be sure to include the correct one. If you are missing or need additional scantrons for a course, contact Washtenaw to be replenished.

Mailing tips and guidelines:

• Envelopes may be included in some course kits. These are provided simply for convenience, not necessity.
• Mail all lessons to Washtenaw. Do not mail them to LU669 JATC.
• Purchasing correct postage is always your responsibility. If you are enclosing multiple lessons into one envelope, you may have to include more postage. Be sure to check with post office and whenever in doubt, add more postage.
• Postal delivery times can vary dramatically, depending on geography and holidays. Allow up to ten days to be safe.
• It is permitted to use commercial carriers or USPS Express mail with tracking numbers. Near the end of a quarter it is encouraged to upgrade to these. Requiring a recipient signature, however, may delay delivery in some cases.
• Though it happens rarely, USPS has lost or delayed parcels from apprentices in the past. Regardless of carrier mistakes, it is still your responsibility to ensure lessons are delivered to Washtenaw before deadlines.
• As a precaution, we encourage you to photocopy your work for your own records, but send originals to Washtenaw.
• Lessons can never be faxed or emailed. Faxed or emailed lessons will automatically be rejected.
• Current USPS postage rates, locations and parcel tracking information can be found at www.usps.com.

Receiving lesson feedback by mail:

When received, your lessons will be logged into intake and graded by Washtenaw faculty. Once posted, grades can be viewed on the testing site by clicking the appropriate lesson link under the course’s Topic Outline page.

Allow up to six business days from the date your hand-graded lessons are received by Washtenaw before grades are posted. By strict policy, hand-graded lessons and exams are processed in the order received. Under no circumstance will there be rush grading services provided for an apprentice. Also know that numbers in your Student Progress box will not show lessons received until grades are posted.

Your hand-graded lessons will be mailed back to you shortly after the scores are posted online, though due to varying delivery times, please allow several weeks before you receive these lessons back. Your lessons will contain grader marks and a letter stating your score. Unlike the online quizzes, the graders will not provide you with answers to your errors. We encourage you to thoroughly review your graded lesson work before taking the final exam.

Re-attempting hand-graded lesson quizzes to improve scores

As with online lessons, you must maintain a combined score average of 60 or higher with hand-graded lessons to be eligible for the course final. If you scored low, you should consider attempting them again to improve your average.

To re-submit hand-graded lessons, you cannot simply make corrections to your original answers. You must request to receive more Scantrons from Washtenaw and you must also re-write the entire lesson before submitting again. Lessons submitted that have previous grader marks on them will be rejected.