There will be maintenance to LaunchPad, Sapling, and FlipIt from 12:01am Eastern until 7:00am Eastern (7 hours) on Sunday morning, November 8. None of those products will be available during that time. In additional, all assessments in Achieve will be unavailable during those 7 hours (although other parts of Achieve like the e-book and videos will be useable during that time). A notice will go up in the relevant systems 7 days in advance to alert students to this work, although we pick Sunday AM as the time to do this maintenance as it's when historically we have the lowest number of users in our products. Please make any adjustments to your assignments and sleep in (or go to bed early or nap then, if you're in a different time zone) and thanks for your patience with us.  ... View more

When we first started bringing students into Macmillan Learning’s Austin office (remember those days!) to give us their feedback on Achieve, we asked them all sorts of questions to help figure out how we were going to design and develop, and later, improve, Achieve. One thing that students told us over and over, regardless of school type or major, was that they needed more tools to help them succeed as students generally, outside of the course-specific content.  With this information in mind, continuing to work with students and instructors, we’ve come up with a series of Goal-setting and Reflection Surveys. What is the content? At the beginning of the semester, a new, optional Intro Survey asks students to consider their goals for the class and to think about how they plan to manage their time and learning strategies. Later, Checkpoint surveys get students to reflect on what's been working and what has not so that they can decide to make changes on their own. Each survey that students complete generates a report that gives instructors a bigger picture of how their class is doing beyond their grades.  While the surveys are most effective when used throughout the semester, it’s never too late to assign a Checkpoint survey to encourage self-reflection. (See below for sample reports.)  Where can I find this content? Under the new Innovation Lab label in each Achieve course's Resources, you will find Achieve's new Goal-setting and Reflection Surveys, a series of short, assignable surveys that accomplish exactly what the name implies: goal-setting and self-reflection at key points across the semester. What is the status of this project? This content is still a work in progress. We want instructors to use these surveys with their students this fall and then give us feedback on how things went, so we can continue to revise and improve this content.  How can I get involved? All you need to do is assign the surveys and we will reach out to you with more information.  What do the reports look like? Here are two sample screenshots to give you an idea. (They look great, I think!)  You can find the reports in an Innovation Lab tab in the Reports area of Achieve.            ... View more

Test Security - We have had a number of instructors ask us about test security, and we also know that a lot of your schools already have programs for proctoring and browser lockdown. As such, we are not adding our own options for proctoring and lockdown (and be forced to charge for it accordingly), but rather we are providing more tools to make exporting our tests to load into your campus LMS easier. Directions to export a test created with Macmillan Learning Test Bank into your LMS are here.  In addition, each of the individual digital products that we offer have tools to help with test security. You can read through those options here. And we had a very useful webinar with Eric Chiang where he reviewed ideas for test security.  Lastly, we have moved most of our test banks to the Macmillan Learning Test Bank, accessible only only to a verified instructor. With this system you can: Create paper or online tests that you can export to your LMS using your web browser; Drag and drop questions to create tests; Create and edit your own questions and edit publisher-created question sets. Learn more here:  https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/article/Getting-Started-with-the-Macmillan-Learning-Test-Bank.   Engaging Students - We know that one of the biggest concerns if you end up moving to a fully or partially online class is keeping students engaged. While each of our products have active aspects, we are proud to offer the market's leading student engagement solution, iClicker. Our attendance feature automates taking roll, then you can choose from flexible polling & quizzing options to engage, check understanding and get feedback from students in real time. Best of all, iClicker works seamlessly with your existing content and any other software or tools you'd like to use in your virtual, hybrid or in-person class. We also have great webinars on fostering student curiosity and engaging students online that I’d recommend.    Volume / Load - We anticipate that many more instructors are likely to try digital solutions for their students as classes are moving to hybrid or fully online options this fall. As such, we have been planning for a large uptick in student usage and making adjustments to our servers accordingly. We feel very good about our preparedness for a significant increase in student users in all of our platforms.    Instructor Training on Digital Products - We are anticipating that a lot more instructors are going to be in need of training with more digital product usage and with changing class formats. Beyond our standard training options, including time with our Learning Solutions team and our self-help documentation, we are also doing intensive training with our entire team so we have more people available to train you. In addition, there are help guides within the products and we have a group of Faculty Consultants (colleagues) who are also available to help. For this to be successful, however, we request that you don’t wait until the day or two before classes start before you request training. 🙂    Professional Development - Throughout the spring and summer, we conducted a wide variety of webinars with a number of our fabulous authors and customers and we recorded all of those webinars. You can find all the recordings here, and they cover both general teaching tips (Online Teaching, Inclusive Teaching) as well as tips for particular disciplines or products. Check out the options!    Student Training on Digital Products - We will continue to add to and refine our First Day of Class Materials for students for you to send to students or use on the first day of class so they know what you are asking them to do online, why, and how to get started.    Customer Support - Our fantastic customer support team stands at the ready to help you and your students with any issues that may arise. You can find the team (as well as a variety of help articles) online here: https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/   ... View more