In order to provide instructors and other faculty the most valuable and actionable evidence of how a digital tool will work for their students in their educational environments, evaluation of product effectiveness needs to begin in development and continue throughout the lifetime of the product. By beginning testing early in a product’s life cycle, instructors have valuable insights they can use when making adoption and implementation decisions. This research brief presents the results from beta tests of ACHIEVE Read & Practice for psychology and provides a discussion about how we have used early evaluation to further refine the product, to inform subsequent impact testing, and to provide early evidence of effectiveness to support instructors when they make adoption and usage decisions.     Achieve Read & Practice for OpenStax Introductory Psychology (Six Months Access)  ... View more

We have been researching the impact of iClicker for years and here are two infographics that show some of our results.      ... View more

This research note offers an overview of the quasi-experimental, mixed-methods study of the impact of the iClicker engagement model on student academic performance. Results from this study indicate that using iClicker in the higher education classroom increases average end of course grades. Additional analyses suggest that this impact can be explained by an increase in student confidence to participate, engagement in class, and preparedness for in-class exams.     ... View more

In order to provide instructors and other faculty the most valuable and actionable evidence of how a digital tool will work for their students in their educational environments, evaluation of product effectiveness needs to begin in development and continue throughout the lifetime of the product. By beginning testing early in a product’s life cycle, instructors have valuable insights they can use when making adoption and implementation decisions. This research brief presents the results from an implementation study of the iClicker student app and provides a discussion about how this study will provide early evidence of effectiveness to support instructors when they make adoption and usage decisions.   ... View more

In order to provide instructors and other faculty the most useful, practical, and actionable evidence of whether a digital learning tool will work for students in their educational environments, evaluation of product effectiveness should begin in development and continue once a product is on the market. By defining implementation use cases and examining how implementation decisions relate to student outcomes, instructors have valuable insights to refer to when using the iClicker student app in the classroom. This paper presents the results from the iClicker student app implementation study and includes a discussion about how identifying and defining use cases can help instructors make research-driven decisions about how to use a digital learning tool.     ... View more

  Educational technology has the potential to substantially improve student success, particularly when it comes to active learning. Yet, many instructors are concerned about the impact of internet-enabled devices like laptops and phones in their classrooms, and research demonstrates that using devices in the classroom can divide student’s attention in class (Glass & Kang, 2017; Sana, Weston & Cepeda, 2013; Hembrooke & Gay, 2003; Grace-Martin & Gay, 2001). The division of  student attention between classroom instruction and content on mobile devices is sometimes referred to as multitasking behavior. Previous research has indicated that multitasking behavior (Payne-Carter, Greenburg & Walker, 2017; Jacobsen & Forste, 2011; Fried, 2007) is negatively related to student performance on classroom exams and overall course grades, as well as student perception of content mastery. Macmillan Learning’s new Focus feature in iClicker Reef was created to help students manage the distractions that divide their attention while maintaining active learning in class. Focus is a setting instructors can enable in iClicker to help students stay on task when using mobile devices for participation in iClicker classroom activities. Students log into their iClicker sessions during class and are sent a reminder to remain focused in class if they choose to leave the iClicker session to browse the web, answer texts, or watch videos. Students and their instructor are provided a summary of information about students’ time spent in and out of Focus while using iClicker. The goal of providing this information is to increase students’ awareness of any multitasking behavior and to help them self-regulate their ability to stay on task during class. In the Fall 2019 semester, eight instructors partnered with Macmillan Learning to better understand whether iClicker Focus supports student learning and self-regulation of multitasking behavior. This research brief outlines those partnerships and highlights the results of the study. The report begins with an overview of iClicker Reef and the Focus feature, the research procedures including samples and methods are presented next, followed by results and implications for instructors.   ... View more

Infographics on the data we've gotten regarding students' use of LaunchPad in their psychology courses.      ... View more

In this paper, we propose a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of digital learning tools that begins during development and continues once a product is in use. The framework starts by building a clear understanding of the variety of ways users choose to use a learning product, and progresses through increasingly rigorous studies, repeated across different educational environments and use cases. This approach provides a continuously growing body of evidence that, we believe, provides more relevant and reliable insights into how a product will be effective and under what circumstances.   ... View more

In this paper, we outline the approach to educational data mining and learning analytics we have developed at Macmillan Learning, illustrate how this approach is aiding the development of a next generation of digital educational tools, informing textbook authors and content developers, and enabling better insights and intervention strategies for institutions, faculty and staff, and students themselves. But first, we will begin with a brief survey of the current state of analytics.         ... View more

  Here, we have assembled Six Key Principles for Learning Experience Design that educational research and cognitive psychology indicate are instrumental to driving better learner outcomes. These are divided into six “Foundations” and a corresponding set of six “Principles” derived from these foundations. These underly Macmillan’s other Learning Science Foundations. ... View more

One of three versions of the Macmillan Learning Model, the Active Learning Model provides a visualization of the instructional and assessment elements that underlie a learning experience. This model provides instructors and institutions with a suggested sequence of instruction, assessment, non-cognitive and metacognitive components that can be used to design their digital learning experience.   ... View more

The third version of the Macmillan Learning Model, the Project-Based Learning Model, adds a project segment to the model, along with small group peer workshopping and large group discussion. Like the other versions of the model, instructors can use the suggested sequence of instruction, assessment, non-cognitive and metacognitive components to help them in their course design.   ... View more

Here we provide an evidence-based Learning Objective Strategy derived from a synthesis of the learning science literature. We begin by discussing the benefits of using learning objectives to drive learning experience design, then outline a research-based approach to the design of learning objectives.   ... View more

Here we provide an evidence-based strategy for assessment practice derived from a synthesis of the research literature. We begin by outlining the importance and benefits of addressing cognitive and noncognitive aspects of learning, then discuss the guiding principles of an effective assessment strategy, best practices in measurement, and features, capabilities of learning experience design that can enhance the assessment strategy and improve learner outcomes.   ... View more

Here we provide overarching principles for the design of effective analytics for instructors derived from a synthesis of the learning science literature. In addition, we provide examples of insights and dashboard reporting elements for instructors that leverage these principles.   ... View more