The Online Learning Consortium has developed a series of scorecards  “with the necessary criteria and benchmarking tools to ensure online learning excellence for the entire institution.”  (https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/consult/olc-quality-scorecard-suite/)    With that in mind, we at Macmillan Learning thought it might be useful to point out a few places where Achieve can help you get a ‘good score’ on these various objectives.  This article is focused on the introductory Quality Scorecard for Digital Courseware Instructional Practice but includes a few additional topics that appear on other scorecards and seem relevant here.    Foundations Learning Objectives: In Achieve, instructors can see which assignments are tied to which Learning Objectives (LOs), and how students are doing on those particular LOs. Learn more about the Reports and Insights in Achieve to see how reporting can help you build and maintain a quality course. Build on their knowledge: Within Achieve, students are asked to build on their knowledge from earlier chapters to show skills and understanding in later chapters.  Even distribution of work: Instructors can set up assignments, as tied to Learning Objectives, to make sure there is an even distribution of work across the class time, and to confirm that students have access to and are using a building blocks approach to learning.    Faculty Engagement System Requirements: As students register for Achieve, they are provided with the system requirements for the product. This information is also provided in the registration information for instructors to share with students, such as the First Day of Class tools.  Feedback: On the content side, many of the homework assignments in Achieve give students detailed, useful feedback if they get a problem wrong (not just “wrong” but an explanation of what was wrong and how to fix it) so they can learn from their mistake, try again, and succeed.    Help: Whenever one is working in Achieve, one can access “Help” in the upper right, which includes links to help articles to read as well as information on contacting Customer Support through email, chat or phone.       Student Engagement Relevant Activities:  Each Achieve course, as makes sense for the course and discipline, provides students with the tools to understand, practically, how the concepts they are learning apply to the real world, from writing feedback to economics principles to learning about how biology applies to everyday life.  Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Following the ideas of Bloom’s taxonomy, every course in Achieve starts with more basic concepts and moves up through Application to Evaluation, allowing for students to practice and assess more advanced thinking skills throughout the course.  Learning Outcomes: In Achieve, Learning Objectives (LOs) can help instructors see which assignments are tied to which LOs, and how students are doing on those particular LOs. Learn more .   Active Learning: In Achieve, students receive access to iClicker, Macmillan Learning’s student response system, to engage students in the course content, both during live classes and outside of class. Learn more about the integration between Achieve and iClicker.    Course Fundamentals Consistent Design: Throughout the development (and subsequent deployment) of Achieve, we review to make sure if you do something following X rules here, you should do the same thing following X rules there. We do a fair amount of testing with both students and instructors to make sure the design is logical and easy to use.  Logical Progression:  The content of Achieve follows the content of each relevant e-book, moving from easier or foundational topics to more complex and higher level topics.  Accessibility: Learn more about the focus on accessibility at Macmillan Learning and within Achieve. Course Documentation:  Every course that is available fully or partially online should include course documentation such as the syllabus, grading policy, and student ethics. Such documentation is easy to post within Achieve.  Additional Tools: Faculty Support: Once you have made the decision to use Achieve in your course, Macmillan Learning offers a variety of tools to help you get up to speed including links to help articles to read as well as information on contacting Customer Support through email, chat or phone. In addition, we offer training on Achieve, and training on LMS integration and the use of iClicker.  Downtime Tracking: Macmillan Learning is happy to provide our most recently downtime statistics, as needed, for the time period you request. In general, we are over 99% uptime.  Security Measures: Within Achieve, we have a variety of different tools, depending on your assignment type, to help you with assignment security, including using time limits, question books, question order scrambling and assignment visibility.  ... View more

As more courses move online, one question we keep getting is, “How do I offer assessments in the most secure way possible?”.   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 below. 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-....   If you are using a Macmillan Learning digital product for your online class, here are some suggestions below to help you with assessment security.    For LaunchPad Users:   Set a Passcode - Requires a student to enter an instructor-specified Passcode to begin the quiz. Limit the Number of Attempts - For higher stakes assessment, only allow students to submit the assessment one time.  Time Limit - This ensures that all students are provided the same amount of time to complete a quiz. If the quiz is not completed within the time limit, the quiz is automatically submitted when time expires. The time limit will also limit students’ ability to look everything up or get too much assistance. Scrambling - Instructors use this setting to randomize the order of question, the order of answer choices, or both. Feedback Control - This gives instructors the control over what information is available to students after they submit a quiz, such as whether to show the correct answers. Visibility - Instructors use the Visibility setting to "hide" a quiz from students until a specific date and time. Hide Grade - Instructors can elect to hide students' quiz grade until the due date has passed. Question Pooling - can further add to the variability of the assessment so that not all students receive the same questions on the exam and instead receive a random set of questions from a set of them. Instructors can set up multiple pools within one assessment to ensure students receive the right number from each desired topic the test should cover.   You can see all of these settings explained in this article on setting up assignments: https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/article/LaunchPad-Tips-for-setting-up-assignments  and the article on question pooling: https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/article/LaunchPad-Creating-a-quiz-with-question-pools   For Sapling and Achieve Users:  For Assessments, use the Quiz / Test policy and add a time limit also. https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/article/Sapling-Learning-View-or-change-mobile-assignment-grading-policies Time Limit - This ensures that all students are provided the same amount of time to complete a quiz. The time limit will also limit students’ ability to look everything up or get too much assistance. https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/article/Sapling-Learning-Make-an-Assessment-timed Use question pools - Although many of our questions already contain variation, using Pools can further add to the variability of the assessment so that not all students receive the same questions on the exam and instead receive a random set of questions from a set of them. Instructors can set up multiple pools within one assessment to ensure students receive the right number from each desired topic the test should cover.  https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/article/Sapling-Learning-Create-and-edit-question-pools-in-mobile-assignments Scrambling - Randomizing the order the questions are delivered could also be a viable option so no one has the same question 3.  This can be set in the Grading Policies for an assessment. https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/article/Sapling-Learning-View-or-change-mobile-assignment-grading-policieshttps://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/article/Sapling-Learning-View-or-change-mobile-assignment-grading-policies Visibility - When assigning the assessment, instructors should use the visibility settings to ensure students don’t see the exam until the instructor is ready for them to see it. By setting the student visibility to a certain date range, instructors can choose exactly when the assessment becomes visible to students and when it closes from visibility. For higher stakes tests, it is recommended that this window be as short as possible. https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/article/Sapling-Learning-View-or-change-mobile-assignment-grading-policies ... View more

As the semester comes to a close, you'll need to start thinking about wrapping up student grades and then creating your new course for the next semester. Here are a few links to help: LaunchPad: For this semester: Make sure you zero scores for unsubmitted assignments. Make any other changes to student grades. Export your gradebook (as needed).  For next semester: Copy your existing course (and update the due dates) or create a new course. (And, if needed, branch from a course Master to create section copies.)  Update the assignments (changing questions, changing due dates) as needed to meet your course goals. Make sure your course is available for students.  Sapling / SaplingPlus: Make any final changes to student grades. Export grades (as needed).  Copy your course or let the Client Success Team (clientsuccessteam@macmillan.com) know if you wish to use Sapling next semester.  Update the assignments as needed to meet your course goals (whether that means changing the questions or changing the assignment settings).  Achieve:  Make any final changes to student grades. Export the grades (as needed).  Either copy your prior course or create a new course.  Update the assignments as needed to meet your course goals.  And once you've done all that, consider yourself ready for the next semester!  ... View more

We have been doing A LOT of work on Achieve Read & Practice this fall, so here's a recap of what you and your students will have for January 2020.  Course List:  The Course List redesign (that you'll see when you first log into Achieve in mid-December) organizes courses for students and instructors in collapsible buckets allowing users to easily find their current courses and access past courses. Master Section: There is a new Master Section option that will allow one instructor or coordinator to set up their course and then create individual section courses (for themselves or other instructors) from the Master Section. The coordinator can set all of the consistent course info for all sections in one place. These settings pass down to the sections. Section courses are set up in a grid format where the coordinator can specify the section name, meeting days and times, instructor(s) teaching, and the level of access that the instructors will receive for that section. (If an instructor has Restricted Access, the instructor has clear indicators regarding what actions they can and cannot take.) Within the tools, coordinators will be able to edit the content and push the updates to Restricted Access sections until the first grade return. We recommend using Restricted Access for your own sections when you want to manage the content for all of your sections in one place. Preview as Student:  Instructors can preview the course as a student, including My Course and Gradebook. Contextual Help:  From the "Help" in the upper right of each page, we added in Help links to the most commonly asked questions--like how do I assign something on the "My Course" page or how do I sync with my LMS on the "Gradebook" page.  ... View more

   Fostering collegial student relationships in an online environment can be one of the most challenging tasks facing an instructor. I am often asked: How can we get students to interact with each other as frequently as they do in a traditional brick-and-mortar classroom? What are some best practices by which online instructors have facilitated student-to-student engagement? And, more practically, what can we do right now to implement these techniques in the classroom? Fortunately for those of us using LaunchPad, there are many ways to encourage this kind of dialogue, features like the discussion board, that are already built into the platform.    Perhaps the most important, the discussion board tool allows students the ability to post original contributions while also letting them provide feedback to their peers. Indeed, as Krentler and Willis-Flurry (2005) discovered, the implementation of this kind of technology in the classroom does actually empirically increase student learning. While not assigned by default, an instructor can easily implement the discussion board feature into any or all of the chapters and modules. By clicking on “Add to this Unit” the instructor can select the discussion board function and post an appropriate content prompt revolving around the material covered in that specific chapter.    It is often helpful for the instructor to construct a prompt that not merely asks the students their opinion on a certain matter - say, do you believe that nature or nurture is the cause of psychological abnormality and suffering? Rather, by including a video clip or a link to a research article, the instructor can help the students more critically and conceptually engage with the material (Harman & Koohang, 2005). That is, by encouraging students to analyze a specific pedagogical object or artifact, they, by extension, are able better to construct a communal narrative that revolves around that very task. Taking a step further, the instructor can also provide ongoing and dynamic feedback while the discussion board has not passed the due date set in LaunchPad. This has the benefit of helping to steer the dialogue in a certain way, acting as an opportunity for student learning, while also fostering class cohesion and identity.    The importance of student collaboration and building collegiality becomes all the more pressing in a digital classroom. As a result, instructors will find the discussion board option in LaunchPad to be a very welcomed feature. In fact, I have suggested some ways in which educators can implement this into their curricula. However, what I have found after teaching online for the last 8 years is that the more creative we can get with using functions like the discussion board, the more seamless the online experience and the more efficacious the actual learning. References Harma, K. & Koohand, A. (2005). Discussion board: A learning object. Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Learning Objects, 1(1), 67-77. Informing Science Institute. Retrieved September 13, 2019 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/44867/ Krentler, K. A. & Willis-Flurry, L. A. (2005). Does technology enhance actual student learning? The case of online discussion boards. Journal of Education for Business, 20(6), 316-321. Bio Jacob W. Glazier, PhD, LPC, NCC is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Positive Human Development and Social Change at Life University and an online Adjunct Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University – Steinhardt. He provides therapy services online for BetterHelp and its associated sites as a licensed professional counselor. https://jacobglazier.academia.edu/  ... View more

Did you know that you can drag and drop items in the Launchpad calendar? Or batch update your settings in Sapling? Do you have the 411 on Achieve Read and Practice?   Whether you know the tips and tricks or not, receiving training from your Learning Solutions Specialist (or LSS for short) will help get you “in the know” on the digital platform you’ll be using this semester and how to best utilize it for your own course goals.   So, who are the Learning Solutions Specialists? The Learning Solutions Specialists (LSS) are part of the Customer Experience group. Each Learning Solution Specialist is a discipline expert that is responsible for helping instructors have a better experience with Macmillan Products. When speaking to instructors, that LSS can demo the product and give you a preview or give you a full blown training, from content familiarity to functionality and best practices.   Why Should I Meet With An LSS? 45 minutes can change your entire semester. While you may explore your Macmillan product on your own once you have been given access, our LSS team can highlight key functionality that you may have missed and share best practices on how to implement the many learning resources.   There are many benefits to meeting with an LSS: -1-on-1 Meetings focused on your needs and questions -Understand the best practices used by many other instructors -Learn with a guide -Discover Tips and Tricks -Start getting your class setup while on the meeting   What Happens After my meeting? Traditionally, after meeting with the LSS in your discipline, you will be sent a follow-up email that will recap what you spoke about, include technical support info and knowledge article links, as well as an extension of help offered for any further questions you may have about your educational digital platform.   As you can see, there are many benefits for taking time to meet with a Learning Solutions Specialist. This time will be well spent and save you time throughout the semester.   Schedule a demo or training. ... View more

THE FUTURE OF ONLINE LABS Bill Heslop at Learning Science on Smart Worksheets Monday, October 14th at 1:00 PM EST Bill is going to show how student-entered data worksheets could be the answer in your lab, providing students with immediate feedback on their own lab results and saving TAs a ton of time grading--that they can use helping students in lab instead. WATCH THE RECORDING ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lab Simulations - for online learning and to enhance all classes Wednesday, October 16th at 1:00 PM EST Starting some online labs? Want to do more to prepare your students for lab? Learn more about Hayden McNeil's Lab Simulations and how they can benefit your lab and your students. WATCH THE RECORDING ... View more

Picture this: it’s finals week. You’ve been tirelessly grading papers, proctoring exams, attending end-of-semester meetings. Keeping an eye on the final grades deadline, you enter that last student’s exam score into your learning management system (LMS) and click submit. Viola! Another successful semester in the books. You are just about to settle into your favorite reading chair with a glass of vino when you hear your email ding. Your heart sinks as you skim a far-too familiar email. A student is shocked and unhappy with the less-than-desirable grade that has just been posted. “How could this happen? I worked really hard. Can you please bump my grade? Is there any way I can complete extra credit?” The “Surprise F Scenario,” as I like to call it, is one that is equally as frustrating for both students AND instructors. We all want our students to succeed, but we cannot provide grades that have not been earned. Instead, we can help set our students up for success by encouraging them to engage in goal setting and grade tracking from the first week of class on, so they can accurately predict their own performance all semester (before it’s too late!). The concept of goal setting is not new; the goal setting theory has been studied for over fifty years and has been demonstrated as instrumental to success and performance across cultures, contexts, and cohorts (Locke & Latham, 2019). A recent study (Handoko et al., 2019) of over 600 university students in a large online course found that successful completers of the course demonstrated greater skills in goal setting, including setting standards for course assignments, as well as setting short-term (i.e., daily or weekly) and long-term (i.e., monthly or semester) goals. The encouragement of goal setting early in the semester can help students master self-regulated learning – particular in online courses where engagement with course material must be self-directed. Goal setting can also guide time management for students, which is another major predictor of academic success (Basila, 2014). Goal setting should coincide with regular grade tracking. Handoko and colleagues (2009) also found that successful students engaged in “self-monitoring to maintain what they perceived as a high standard for learning” (p.50). To understand if students are reaching short-term goals, and thus more likely to meet long-term goals, they should be monitoring their assignment scores and current grade in the course each week. Their final grade should never be a surprise; if they are checking their progress on a regular basis, they have a realistic idea of how they are performing and what scores they need to earn to achieve a desired final grade. It is so helpful that Macmillan Launchpad automatically syncs with my LMS, so students can view their Learningcurve and Assess Your Strengths grades, as well as all of their Canvas grades and assignments, in one gradebook. To really convince my students why they should engage in these practices, I take a “proof is in the pudding” approach. After the first high stakes assessment, such as a unit exam, I calculate and provide students with their own data that supports this claim. I typically do this by providing a table that breaks down Exam 1 grades (A, B, C, D, F, Did not Attempt), and provide corresponding grade averages for the lower stake learning activities (Learningcurve, Assess Your Strengths, weekly attendance/participation, etc.). A pattern almost always emerges that shows as exam grades go down, averages for other class activities goes down. This highlights to students that the weekly goals (and corresponding activities) matter – those achieving those weekly goals are more successful on high stake assessments. Best practices: Encourage goal setting during the first week of classes by asking students to complete a goal worksheet with daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Regularly check in with them to update their worksheet. Post the expected time commitment for each assignment to assist with time management. Ask students to track their own progress using the Launchpad and LMS gradebook. Research shows simply measuring behavior can improve it. Many LMS systems allow students to determine how well they need to do on assignments to earn a desired grade such as a What If? Feature where they can enter hypothetical grades for future assignments). Encourage them to set a short-term goal (daily or weekly) and long-term goals using this feature, and regularly monitor their progress in the gradebook. After a high stakes assignment, show students a breakdown of the high stakes assignment grades with grades on other assignments – this usually showcases a pattern that those who complete/do well on learning activities also do well on larger assessments. Show them data supporting that their effort and performance on low stakes assignments pays off in meeting goals.   References Basila, C. (2014). Good time Management and motivation level predict student academic success in college on-line courses. International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning, 4(3), 45–52. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcbpl.2014070104    Handoko, E., Gronseth, S., McNeil, S., Bonk, C., & Robin, B. (2019). Goal setting and MOOC completion: A study on the role of self-regulated learning in student performance in massive open online courses. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 20(3), 40-58.   Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2019). The development of goal setting theory: A half century retrospective. Motivation Science, 5(2), 93–105. https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000127 ... View more

I’ve been teaching Abnormal Psychology with LaunchPad in hybrid and in-person courses for multiple years, but this summer semester was my first attempt at teaching fully online. Compressing the 15-week course into 8-weeks was one challenge, but others included how to best communicate all the things that often get said in the classroom, not just about content, but also about how to use resources like Launchpad. Below are some lessons learned: Things kept from previous classes that worked well: An extensive syllabus, including not only requirements and schedule, but also all assignment components, and an expanded section on the computer access and skills necessary for success in the course. This includes reminders to plan for emergencies, and always have a backup. LearningCurve – these quizzes have been a great tool for my students for many semesters, and this did not change in the online modality. I require students to complete these as they read the chapters, and encourage them to return to them as a study tool before tests. Frequent reminders/FAQs – there are always questions about LaunchPad and how it is integrated into the course. I keep a list of both the questions asked, and how these are answered, so that in future courses I can post these as a reference. I also schedule announcement posts in the first week of class reminding students how to do things like integrating their LaunchPad account into the LMS (we use D2L Brightspace). Test questions – many of which I have obtained from the Instructor Resources included in LaunchPad. While testing did have to be moved into the LMS, the items remained the same, allowing me to compare results across modalities. Things that had to be adapted to the online modality: Early semester presentation on how to use LaunchPad. In previous semesters I have worked through this in person – for the online course I recorded a mini-lecture of me working through the site, navigating one LearningCurve quiz, navigating to the grade book, etc. Lecture presentations – while I have recorded lectures and provided these online in order to use a “flipped” classroom model for previous hybrid sections, teaching fully online reduced the opportunities for students to discuss questions about these lectures with me in person. This was dealt with by adding the discussion modules below. Things added to the online course: Discussion boards – in place of in-class discussions, students were required to post their questions or comments on each chapter, and respond to their colleagues. This allowed an opportunity to correct misapprehensions and answer questions about content. In addition, this further encouraged reading of the textbook, which was the prompt for these discussion posts. Online interaction with instructor and TA – as always, students were encouraged to come to us with problems as early as possible. New modalities for this were necessary, and a discussion board was added for this purpose. Activity Checklists – in order to organize the many components of the online course, and to help with flow in a compressed (8-week) semester, a checklist of tasks was created for each week of the course. This included links to: the e-book with instructions to read the relevant chapter the relevant Learning Curve assignment, which had been integrated into the LMS any additional reading the posted video lecture\ the required discussion posts in the LMS This addition also helped streamline student’s use of LaunchPad, as the checklists were in the LMS, but linked to components of LaunchPad which had been integrated. Links navigated to Launchpad, but scores appeared in both gradebooks.  Results Class average scores on all tests were approximately the same, in some cases slightly better, than in the previous 3 semesters of teaching the course in other modalities. As usual, there were some students who failed to complete some or all of the LaunchPad assignments, however the proportion of this seemed lower than in previous semesters. Final grade average was slightly higher than in most recent semesters, with a higher proportion of “A” grades. ... View more

As you know, one of the benefits of using a digital product (vs a print product) is that you can quickly make changes to that product and continue to improve on it after it releases. To that end, we’ve been working hard on Read & Practice in 2019 (and will continue to do so through the rest of the year).    This summer, we released two major changes: Added ‘batch’ functionality so you can assign multiple items or chapters at once  (directions under Method 4) Changed the page layout so you can see more of the important stuff at once   As a reminder, in the spring, the team was also busy working on a variety of changes and improvements based on your feedback: Improved the loading speed of the gradebook Improved navigation within the gradebook so that the top row and left column always appear Added pagination to the gradebook so instructors don’t have to wait for ALL students to load on one page Added Search to look for specific Assignments or specific Students in the Gradebook.  Added the downloadable ebook option (click on the arrow next to your name in the upper right) Created the ability for instructors to add a URL to their course   And of course, we will not stop work once the fall rolls around...but we want you to have the element of surprise to look forward to…so more to come! ... View more

In an effort to make sure you are all ready to go before classes start, here's a short checklist of how to prepare yourself and your students to use LaunchPad this semester.  Course Set Up – Prior to Term ❏ Bookmark the LaunchPad sign in page: https://www.macmillanlearning.com/college/us/digital/launchpad/ ❏ Attend a training and develop confidence in your ability to use LaunchPad ❏ Learn your username and password (and don’t put it on a post-it note in your office for students to see) ❏ If you are using an LMS in conjunction with LaunchPad, make sure your integration is set up correctly and that you’ve attended the LMS training session.  ❏ Bookmark Instructor Help and know how to contact Customer Support  ❏ Set up a new course for the new term. (You can copy your existing course and branch it, if  you have multiple sections of the same course, or create a new course.)  ❏ Make a series of assignments for students to complete. If you are new to LaunchPad and want to start small, we typically recommend that you begin with LearningCurve. ❏ Confirm that your assignment settings match the goals of your course.  (For instance, do you want to make the assignments due before class to enable discussion or after class, to confirm understanding.)  ❏ Activate your course so it is available for students to enroll into.  ❏ Prepare for your First Day of Class with students by using our FDOC tools or by talking to your local representative. Getting Started with Students - First Day of Class ❏ Provide students with the access information needed to join your course, whether they are buying access through the Macmillan LearningStudent Store or purchasing codes directly from your campus bookstore.  ❏ Explain to students why you are having them use LaunchPad and show how it can benefit them ❏ Make students aware of the three purchase options: purchase now, enter an access code, and pay later.  ❏ Make sure students know when and how to contact Customer Support.   ❏ Make students aware that the full ebook is included in LaunchPad, and it’s available to be downloaded for reading offline.  Gradebook Results and Assessment – During and After the Term ❏ Review the gradebook to identify common student misconceptions and inform course and lecture plans  ❏ Use individual student data for early intervention  ❏ Download my student results from LaunchPad (or, if using an LMS, from the LMS) ❏ Think about how to change and improve your course for next semester ❏ Review the Macmillan “Webinars on Demand” for new ideas on how to use LaunchPad in your course. ... View more

The team has been working hard on improvements to LaunchPad this year. A lot of the changes are ‘behind the scenes’ like security improvements and changes to how LaunchPad works for visually impaired users working with JAWS, but a few to highlight are: We just released some student onboarding changes that adds a "Purchase Access" and "Enter A Code" button to the top of the LaunchPad course if a user has less than 30 days of access remaining. This is designed to make life (and purchasing) easier for students using Trial Access.  To further help with student onboarding, we increased character limit of the LaunchPad school name field so institutions with a very long name won’t be truncated, making it easier for students to find their school.  We removed the Flash Player from the LaunchPad System Check since a) we have very little Flash content in LP anymore and b) Flash is going away, as you know.  The "Zero score for unsubmitted" Gradebook Preference is now disabled by default for copied/branched course. This prevents the issue where an instructor creates a copy or branch of an existing course but doesn’t update the due dates and then when students enroll in the course, they automatically receive a zero for all past due assignments. ... View more

Macmillan Learning has a Faculty Consultant program that might work for you.       The Faculty Consultants talk about how they implement our products in their classes. They can speak about how our products actually work in real classes with live students.   They can talk about how LaunchPad changed their class or what students think of Sapling or how they included Achieve Read & Practice into their syllabus or how they use iClicker to engage students. So if you are thinking about using LaunchPad, we can connect you to another faculty member to learn more about what they  use in LaunchPad and why they like it. Or if you aren't sure how Sapling would fit into your program, you can talk to an Faculty Consultant about their experience with Sapling.  Or if you want to know if Achieve Read & Practice really works, you can talk to a peer about the benefits of R&P. Lastly, if you want to know anything about iClicker--active learning activities, grading best practices, or benefits of the student app & remotes--our Advocates are prepared to help out!   If you want to learn more, just comment on this post and we'll be in touch!      ... View more

For Fall 2019 classes, almost all of our Sapling users (except those in Chemical Engineering and Organic Chemistry) will have the option to start using Sapling in HTML5. What are the benefits of moving to HTML5? With Flash going away, there will be NO PLUGIN needed to run Sapling. Sapling will then run faster on more browsers.   (For the best user experience, we recommend that you run a browser check. Go to HTML5test.com to see your status). We will have more accessibility options. HTML5 also provides a better platform for upcoming additions to features and functionality. More modern and intuitive user experience Assignment preview and reset has more options Improved analytics such as item analysis Mobile accessible for tablets and target Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 AA Previewing assignments is easier Building and editing assignments is easier MolDraw for Lewis structures and molecular geometry What do you need to do to move to HTML5? If you are planning on using Sapling for the Fall 2019 semester, the sooner you let the Client Success Team know, the better. They can start building your course now in HTML5 before the start of classes. How can you get training on this? Just sign up for one of our training classes sometime this spring!  https://macmillanlearning.com/Catalog/event/training-demos/Sapling/Training When do you have to move to HTML5? Flash will be retired in December 2020, so you will be definitely need to by the end of 2020. ... View more

Okay, so I will confess that Question Pooling is probably my favorite part of LaunchPad. (Yes, I'm a nerd and I'm okay with that.) Hopefully you know all about question pooling already and this post is a boring reminder...but just in case, here's a recap:  With Question Pooling, you can create a group of questions from which one or more (depending on the setting) is chosen at random for students (and we do this for some of our pre-built quizzes already). If you pick questions that are all related to the same topic (which is sensible to do, by the way), then students are all being quizzed on the same concept, but the actual question they see varies--making cheating harder to do (not that students cheat, but you know, hypothetically...) and giving you a more diverse question base. So you could end up with a quiz where students see 10 questions, but those 10 questions are pulling from a pool of 50 questions, so each student likely ends up with a slightly different quiz from each of their colleagues.  Check it out and let us know what you think!  ... View more