Institutional and Course Context Delaware State University, a public four-year college, serves over 4,000 undergraduate students. The study conducted in this context involved an instructor who taught 108 students in a hybrid combination of face-to-face and virtual instruction. With over fifteen years of teaching experience and a comfort level with digital tools, the instructor implemented Achieve throughout the Fall 2021 semester. Course and Digital Learning Goals The instructor's primary motivation for using Achieve was to keep students engaged and teach them skills that would be applicable in various contexts. Emphasizing the importance of efficiency and providing additional resources for students, the instructor sought to explore new ways of teaching mathematics. Study Design and Results The study aimed to investigate the relationship between the use of Achieve and student outcomes while gathering information on instructor and student perceptions of the tool. The results demonstrated several positive aspects of Achieve for Calculus: Engagement: Both the instructor and the students reported increased engagement in the course with the use of Achieve. Students found the pre-lecture activities and homework assignments within Achieve to be engaging, helping them prepare for class discussions. Active Learning: Achieve encouraged active learning, as reported by the instructor and the students. They felt that Achieve supported their learning and helped them stay on track during class discussions, fostering active participation and deeper insights into the course content. Usability: Achieve was deemed easy to use by both the instructor and the students. The comfort level with Achieve in virtual classroom environments contributed to a seamless teaching and learning experience. The majority of students expressed confidence in using Achieve and would recommend it to others. Comprehension: The tools within Achieve proved effective in supporting student comprehension of the course material. Students reported that Achieve helped them gain a better mastery of the content, fill gaps in their knowledge, and foster deeper insights. Academic Achievement: The study revealed a significant relationship between students' completion of activities within Achieve and their final grades in the course. Higher activity completion correlated with better overall performance. This relationship remained significant even when controlling for students' GPA. Insights for Optimization The instructor and students provided valuable feedback on optimizing the use of Achieve. They highlighted the importance of addressing any issues with slow updating between Achieve and the integrated Learning Management System (LMS). Exploring the available options within iClicker and completing LearningCurves before presenting material in class were also suggested as potential areas for improvement. The findings from this study demonstrate the positive impact of Achieve for Calculus on student academic performance in an average-sized PreCalculus classroom at a four-year university. The tool's ability to enhance engagement, facilitate active learning, promote comprehension, and contribute to better grades highlights its potential in supporting mathematics education. By incorporating such digital tools effectively, educators can create enriching learning experiences and empower students to succeed in their academic journey. Download the white paper   *Note: These results are part of a larger Achieve study across multiple institutions. To access the full report and results, please visit http://www.macmillanlearning.com/catalog/page/learningscience. ... View more

Join the Macmillan Math team for a webinar and Q&A session on how we're using new tools in AI, like ChatGPT, to guide our creation of math assessment online in Achieve. Achieve takes trusted teaching content and a flexible UI to offer tools and resources to support various math courses across the curriculum. Achieve is an iterative platform, always evolving, instead of waiting for new "editions"; new widely accessible AI tools present opportunities to help students develop higher order critical thinking skills while they practice homework exercises.   Watch the recording!  ... View more

Download the whitepaper! Oregon State University is a public four-year college serving over 26,000 undergraduate students. The instructor who partnered with us on this study, Sara Clark, taught 39 students in a face-to-face formatted instruction. The instructor used Achieve throughout the Fall 2021 semester. During this study the instructor assigned homework assignments and post-lecture summative assessments. The instructor reported that students were engaged in their class and students also reported they found Achieve engaging. 100% reported being engaged in the course this semester. 79% reported being actively engaged in classroom discussions. 95% reported engaging in active learning in the course this semester. Both the instructor and the students found Achieve easy to use: 84% reported they were comfortable using Achieve.  Furthermore, Achieve supports student comprehension of classroom material. The instructor reported that the tools within Achieve helped them understand where their students had gaps in their knowledge and also enhanced their pedagogical framework. 79% of students reported that Achieve was effective in supporting their learning over the semester. “The best part was the chance to answer questions multiple times if you got them wrong with the extra chances feature. It encouraged me to reexamine how I answered a question, and look further into the process of how I solved it to seek out mistakes.” —Oregon State Student Student engagement in Achieve appears to be related to student academic achievement. Although the relationship between how many activities students finished within Achieve (as a percentage of how many were assigned in the course) and their final grade in the course was not statistically significant, we can see that those students who are completing more Achieve activities do have higher grades on average. For more details on this study, as well as an additional study on another OSU calculus class, take a look at the white papers below! This series will continue with an in-depth look at the precalculus and calculus classes at more of the schools that participated in this study. ... View more

Precalculus At Penn State University, Amine Benkiran, math instructor, taught 45 students in a face-to-face course. The instructor used Achieve throughout the Fall 2021 semester. During this study, the instructor assigned homework assignments and LearningCurve adaptive quizzes. Students found Achieve engaging and encouraging of active learning.  89% reported being engaged in the course this semester. 89% reported the pre-lecture activities within Achieve as engaging. 94% reported engaging in active learning in the course this semester. 89% reported pre-lecture activities in Achieve helped them actively learn in the classroom. Benkiran reported that the tools within Achieve helped them understand where their students had gaps in their knowledge and also enhanced their pedagogical framework. Students agreed: 83% reported that Achieve was effective in supporting their learning over the semester. 89% reported that using Achieve helped them gain a better mastery of the course content than courses without Achieve. Ultimately, student engagement in Achieve appears to be related to student academic achievements as there was a statistically significant relationship between how many activities students finished within Achieve (as a percentage of how many were assigned in the course) and their final grade in the course. This relationship remained significant even while controlling for students reported high school GPA, p < .05.   Calculus The instructor who partnered with us on this study taught 121 students across two sections of calculus in a face-to-face formatted instruction. He has taught for more than ten years. The instructor reported being somewhat comfortable implementing digital tools in this course. The instructor used Achieve throughout the Fall 2021 semester. During this study the instructor assigned homework assignments and LearningCurve adaptive quizzes. The instructor reported observing a more than typical amount of active learning in their course and that students were moderately engaged in their class. Students also reported they found Achieve engaging and that it helped them prepare for class.  94% reported being engaged in the course this semester. 88% reported engaging in active learning in the course this semester. 76% reported that Achieve helped support their learning. Both the instructor and students reported Achieve was easy to use: 97% reported they were comfortable using Achieve. Achieve supports student comprehension of classroom material. The instructor reported that the tools within Achieve helped them understand where their students had gaps in their knowledge and also enhanced their pedagogical framework. 79% reported that using Achieve helped them gain a better mastery of the course content than courses without Achieve. 87% reported that homework within Achieve helped fill gaps in their knowledge. 84% reported that homework within Achieve fostered deeper insights into the class content. As in Penn State’s precalculus course, student engagement in Achieve appears to be related to student academic achievement. There was a statistically significant relationship between how many activities students finished within Achieve (as a percentage of how many were assigned in the course) and their final grade in the course. This relationship remained significant even while controlling for students reported high school GPA, p < .01.   For more details on the studies done in partnership with Penn State University, take a look at the white papers below! This series will continue with an in-depth look at the precalculus and calculus classes at more of the schools that participated in this study. ... View more

Achieve is built in partnership with instructors, students, and our Learning Science team through iterative improvement and ongoing studies supported by real student data. Macmillan’s Learning Science team collected results from instructor and student surveys, live focus groups, bi-weekly instructor logs, student platform data, and course data to analyze the relationship between homework activity and students’ final grades in precalculus and calculus courses.  Homework completion in Achieve was significantly related to student achievement across all participating precalculus and calculus students (n=1,197). There was a statistically significant relationship between how many homework activities students finished within Achieve (as a percentage of how many were assigned in their course) and their final grade in the course. This relationship (r = 0.23) remained significant even while controlling for students reported GPA, p < .01. The graph shows the relationship between homework activity completion and final grade. Ultimately, students found Achieve engaging and encouraging of active learning. 91% of students reported being engaged in the course that semester while 97% reported that Achieve helped support their learning.  86% reported engaging in active learning in their course. A majority of students found the pre-lecture activities and the homework within Achieve engaging and helpful to their in-class learning.  Instructors from a wide range of institutions were surveyed in their precalculus and calculus courses. Here’s what they had to say about Achieve:  “I think it really makes it easy for us to assign a lot of practice and have that practice give feedback to the students.” “I love the flexibility of the system. I can very easily update questions, change scenarios slightly, add hints to questions, and create my own.” “On one of the problems I assigned with a video, only 20% of students answered the problem correctly [on first try], but by the end, all but two had correctly completed the problem.” For more details on this study, take a look at the white paper below! This series will continue with an in-depth look at the precalculus and calculus classes at some of the schools that participated in this study. Download the white paper ... View more

iClicker and Achieve: Active Learning in the Math and Statistics Classroom Resources for the math and stats classrooms are not in short supply. You could choose several tools for your course, but switching between multiple programs within a single class period can quickly become problematic. Together, Achieve and iClicker are an exceptionally effective and convenient pairing for making a math or statistics classroom more interactive, and, because iClicker is integrated into Achieve, managing the two programs really feels like managing one.  iClicker and Achieve pair seamlessly, and when using them together you gain access to additional capabilities including: Taking attendance with the click of a button Setting up ice-breaker questions so students can get to know each other (and you can see who would work best with each other in group assignments) Boosting engagement with polling questions Providing opportunities for whole-class participation in a low-stress environment Offering tighter feedback loops where students are more concerned about getting the right answer to a question rather than what their overall grade is Creating automatic review resources based on the questions you ask, with iClicker, in class At the very heart of iClicker’s functionality is active learning. iClicker is designed to get students involved in the lesson they’re learning by instigating a two-way conversation with immediate feedback.  Tip: Use iClicker to ask entrance questions such as: What do you remember most from our last class?  What part of the homework gave you the most trouble?  Based on your students' responses, you can then pivot your lesson plan for the day to address common issues. iClicker is also a great tool for: Think-pair-share activities. Put up a question all students answer. Before sharing the answer, ask students to talk to each other about why they picked their response. Asking the same question a second time will show whether students shifted their answer choice. This is a dynamic way to engage students and get them talking with each other.  Virtual hand-raising. This is a great alternative to having a chat that gets out of control if you’re teaching virtually or in a hybrid format. It brings a little order back into the course and is a more official way for students to communicate with you.  Confidence checks. Using the anonymity feature in iClicker, you’re able to have students answer a question without having to feel like they’re going to get singled out. This is perfect for the question, Do you understand everything we just covered? Having to raise your hand in front of everyone to respond is embarrassing, but iClicker makes it anonymous and easy. How Achieve Keeps Students Organized Another way to utilize features in both Achieve and iClicker is to help get students organized. Within Achieve, students can see their to-do list of assignments as well as the big picture with an entire course content view. Because Achieve and iClicker are integrated, even iClicker work is listed for students to see. This helps prevent students from claiming they didn’t know what the homework was.  You can also assign adaptive quizzing to keep students on the right learning path. It’s a great pre-class assignment to get students organized with the right terms and concepts. As the instructor, you have the ability to decide what content you want students to see in Achieve, and what you don’t, so you’re able to highlight those features that will really help students keep it together. How Achieve Reinforces Math and Stats Concepts  Being able to assign iClicker questions within an Achieve assignment means more coverage that related to the topic you’re teaching. Students can answer a question in class in real time and get scored immediately. Then, you can put the same question into Achieve for students to answer on their own time through the program’s interface.  Try this example, suggested from one of our Achieve for Calculus users:  Ask your students to use the Target question to find the inflection point on a graph, then you can select the area in which the right answer falls to grade the question.             How Achieve Supports Instructors  Two features in particular allow Achieve to give instructors a break in their own workload: pre-built activity guides and assessments.  Activity guides span varied topics throughout the course. Topics are timely, relevant, and interesting to students.Instead of having to come up with what to do from scratch, Achieve presents a step-by-step guide for preparing and implementing the activity. You get everything you need to do, including tools like worksheets, presentation slides, and even iClicker questions when available.  Take a closer look at Instructor Activity Guides: The assessment engine within Achieve is mobile-friendly and meets accessibility standards. Students can see it and use it on any device. It links the interactive e-book, hints, course-specific resources, and a variety of tools that can help with homework assignments. The assessment engine also gives students detailed feedback as they work, making it easier to address any errors or misconceptions. Learn more about Achieve ... View more

The Winter Olympics are almost over, but there's still time to engage your stats students with some new online learning tools and resources. Check out some of our winter sports examples and problems, and see how Achieve is changing the game.  Kokoska's Introductory Statistics: A Problem-Solving Approach, 10e helps students develop the fundamental lifelong skill of solving problems and interpreting solutions in real-world terms. Take a look at this Sports and Leisure example: Tour Achieve for Kokoska 10e to see the tools and resources designed for use before, during and after class. Students apply their knowledge with the following snowboarding problem from The Basic Practice of Statistics, 9e.  Take a tour of Achieve for BPS 9e to see the digital resources that support in-class learning as well as independent studying. Request access to Achieve or contact your rep to see more! ... View more

Are you watching the Winter Olympics? Macmillan has statistics examples and problems to compliment your watching experience! With downloadable data sets and guided practice, Achieve for Statistics deepens your students’ statistical knowledge while giving you an insight into class performance. Built-in coaching tools—hints, detailed feedback, and fully worked solutions—guide students toward the correct answers. By stating, planning and solving the problem, students gain a better understanding of concepts. Check out the following exercise from Chapter 2 of The Basic Practice of Statistics, 9e.   Watch the video below to learn more about our data sets and video technology. Find your rep or request access to Achieve to see this data set and more! ... View more

Use the 2022 Winter Olympics to boost student engagement in your statistics course! The right example could spark your students’ interest in the material–something that is especially important after the last couple years. Check out the following example from The Basic Practice of Statistics, 9e to see how ‘randomness’ turned silver to bronze in 2006. The Basic Practice of Statistics, 9e uses examples and exercises from a wide variety of topic areas that use current, real data to provide students insight into how and why statistics are used to make decisions in the real world.  Achieve for The Basic Practice of Statistics, 9e connects the trusted Four-Step problem-solving approach and real world examples in the book to rich digital resources that foster further understanding and application of statistics. Watch the video below to learn more about Achieve and the resources available for statistics. To learn more, request access to Achieve or contact your rep today! ... View more

With the Olympic Games returning for the Winter, we’re looking at the stats of our favorite teams and Olympic athletes! Take advantage of this opportunity to introduce some of the harder statistics concepts and use examples that are current and relevant.  Request access to Achieve and see how the e-book engages students with real-life examples and interactives. The e-book offers highlighting, note-taking, offline access, and screenreader functionality. Data sets and Video Technology Manuals are available for commonly used statistical software, including Excel, SPSS, R, Minitab, and many others.    Take inspiration from the content and cover of Kokoska’s Introductory Statistics: A Problem-Solving Approach! Learn more about Achieve for Statistics or sign up for a demo for a one-on-one tour. ... View more

As winter break approaches and students prepare for final exams and projects, instructors are busy writing and grading those finals and discovering how well students actually understood the material. With the mix of available virtual and in-person courses, the consideration of different types of assessments becomes very complex.  Courses in STEM disciplines often cover a large amount of material that tends to encourage superficial learning instead of the more ideal deep approach to learning. Additionally, STEM courses seem to have a threatening and anxiety-provoking assessment system.  Summative assessment is the assessment of student learning; it is usually an exam, final project or report that provides a score on that student’s performance but rarely offers timely or effective feedback. But these final exams and evaluations are inherently necessary in the framework of our education system. What remains is to learn how to use summative assessment as a learning tool. Consider the ideas in the table below for your own test-taking processes. During the test Collaborative test-taking Pyramid exams Immediate feedback assessment technique Self-corrected exams Prior to return of the test Do-over After the return of the test Highlighting missed material Point-recapture Test analysis   How do you make use of summative assessments? Explore the various types of assessments and strategies for their use in Assessment in the College Classroom.   ... View more

How would your students define their relationship with math? BFFs? Casual Acquaintances? Estranged?    Whether you teach precalculus, math for liberal arts, or quantitative literacy, understanding how your intro students feel about math can set the stage to help your students develop confidence in their problem-solving abilities and an appreciation of how math affects the world around them.  Check out this exercise that Bruce Crauder, Macmillan author of Quantitiative Literacy and Preparation for Calculus, assigns to his students at Oklahoma State University.       Turn in a full-page typed essay covering the following topics: --Paragraph 1.  Introduce yourself to me What's your major? Where are you from? What are your hobbies? --Paragraph 2.  Write your math autobiography, i.e. tell me about yourself and math Do you dream in mathematical terms? Or did you part ways with math in the third grade and never look back? --Paragraph 3.  Let me know what you want to achieve in this class What will completing this class enable you to do? What do you hope to take away from this class? What can I do to help you get there?   Finding out a little bit about your students' approach the course can go a long way in helping them succeed. And who knows, maybe your students and math can be lifelong friends after all!   ... View more

When you compete at the Olympic level, every second and centimeter counts to give you an edge.  That’s why athletic gear is so important!  Looking for athletics examples and exercises in your statistics course that are a little outside of the box? Check out a sample of some of our favorite content, all about the shoes, fuel, and equipment that Olympic athletes rely on to compete at the highest level.   What other athletic gear do you think could lend a good data set to statistical analysis?  Achieve allows instructors to write their own questions, or edit pre-built questions, to incorporate any examples, skills, or exercises that work best for their class.   Want to see more? Browse more features of Achieve for Statistics, or sign up for a demo here!     ... View more

“Dive” into these Achieve for Statistics exercises from our favorite Olympic water sports. Are you and your statistics students watching this year’s Tokyo Summer Olympics? Bring examples into your classroom from swimming and diving using our Achieve homework questions with embedded data sets. We include data sets and technology how-to videos for Excel, JMP, Minitab, R, RCmdr, SPSS, TI calculators, and more!   From Kokoska's Introductory Statistics 3e, now with Achieve!   Check out more great features of Achieve for Statistics here, or sign up for a demo! ... View more

  The fastest, the highest, and the furthest. Track & Field is full of exciting events, which, beyond showcasing incredible athletic feats, also produce some great data sets for statistical analysis. What's your favorite track & field event? Check out our range of track & field questions in Achieve for Statistics to see how you can "track" the data in your own class, alongside this year's Tokyo Summer Olympics.      See more examples below or sign up for a demo to explore more features of Achieve for Statistics!   ... View more