Teaching Tip: Learning Modules: What's the Point?

By John Squires, Chattanooga State Community College

Modularization has become a popular concept, particularly as colleges consider new approaches to subjects such as developmental math. As math departments consider organizing the curriculum into modules the following question often arises: What's the point? To answer this, I am going to talk about the concept of the weekly assignment and its advantages. I'll also discuss some best practices and settings in MyMathLab that can help increase student engagement and performance.

Organizing the curriculum into weekly assignments is a very important concept. I call these weekly units "mini-modules" and use them as the basic building block of a well-designed course in MyMathLab. These weekly assignments offer several advantages. First, they help to keep students on track and on task. Communicating weekly expectations to students provides them with a road map to success which they can use just like a carpenter would use blue prints to build a house. Also, weekly assignments can provide regular feedback and assessment.

I am not only referring to the feedback that MyMathLab provides as students do the homework, but I am also suggesting that, as part of the course, students take weekly quizzes to give the student a sense of whether they are understanding the material or not. A big advantage to providing weekly checks for understanding is that those students who aren't "getting it" will realize it, which will encourage them to keep working.

Finally, these weekly building blocks, or mini-modules, should consist of related concepts, meaning that the students learn the material in bite-size chunks. If the amount of material that students learn in a semester represents an elephant, these weekly assignments are the bites of material that help students to "eat the elephant."

Apart from course organization, there are also some important settings in MyMathLab that can be used to increase student engagement and success. In my opinion, the most important one is prerequisites. Rather than handing the students a list of assignments and wishing them good luck, prerequisites organize the material into a linear progression of topics that they have to master before going on to the next topic. Setting up prerequisites can ensure that students taking a test in the course have actually done all of the homework. In the end, we all want students to learn and succeed, and MyMathLab settings such as prerequisites can certainly play a role in doing just that.

Teaching Tip: Including a "Quizzing" Feature in MyMathLab® Homework: Mixing in Items
without Learning Aids

By Sandee House, Georgia Perimeter College

Why do this?
Some students get an unrealistic sense of what they've learned after MML homework because they don't stop to consider that they used multiple attempts and learning aids to earn their homework grade. Students need to be able to assess their own level of learning. Especially important if MML is used only for homework!

How to do this?
Create the HW assignment as usual

• Use the "Copy and Edit" feature which allows you to make changes to an item within an exercise set.
• Use the "Copy and Edit" to limit the number of attempts on a particular item within a homework assignment.
• Use the "Instructor Tip" feature to warn students that they get 1 chance on some items.

Want to see some screen shots of this? Go to http://www.scribd.com for more detailed information.

This is a regular column in the newsletter where selected questions from educators are answered by Training Consultant Irene Doo. You can pose questions you may have about MyMathLab, MyStatLab, MathXL, or MyMathTest by emailing Irene at irene.doo@pearsoned.com

	I recently bought a new laptop and I need to install TestGen on this computer. It's been several years since I had to do this and I don't remember how I got TestGen on my old computer. Please help. Cheryl
	Hi Cheryl, Congratulations on your new laptop! You can download the TestGen program and test banks from the Pearson website. Here's what you need to do: Go to http://www.pearsoned.com/testgen. If prompted, enter your MyMathLab username and password. Click the Downloads link. Follow the on-screen directions to download and install the TestGen application. Once you have installed the program, go to http://www.pearsonhighered.com/math. Browse the catalog and navigate to the home page for your textbook. On the textbook home page, click the Resources tab. In the list of available resources, look for the item labeled "TestGen Computerized Test Bank" and click the "View Downloadable Files" link. Follow the on-screen directions to download the test bank. BTW, you can download additional test banks as desired. This is helpful if you are looking for questions to add to your quizzes that are from other textbook.
	I have been using TestGen to create worksheets and quizzes for my classes. It's a great program and easy to use to format my quizzes. Now, I would like to give my quizzes online in MyMathLab. However, I would still like to use TestGen for my quizzes as I like the questions in TestGen and I also like to ability to add questions from different books. Being new to MyMathLab, I'm a bit lost and need help bringing my TestGen quizzes into MyMathLab. Manuel
	Hello Manuel, It's a two-step process to bring TestGen quizzes into MyMathLab. First, you need to format and save the test in TestGen as a "Web Test". If you already have the test saved in TestGen, open up the test and select File >> Change Test Type. Select "A Test for the web" from the dialog box. Then, select the "TestGen Plug-in (TG)" platform. This saves your test in the correct format for uploading into MyMathLab. Next, log in to MyMathLab and navigate to the Test Manager. Create a test and select the option to "Upload an existing test created in TestGen." Follow the on-screen directions to upload your test.
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