One of the most frequent questions I get about MyLab homework and quizzes is “How many problems do you put in an assignment?” My most frequent answer … It Depends. When I first started my homework assignments had somewhere between 15 and 20 questions. My chapter quizzes, which became semi-chapter quizzes, also had between 15 and 20 questions. As I have aged, I apparently have become a minimalist! I have drastically cut down the length of my assignments, and I…
One of the biggest complaints I hear about MyMathLab homework is that students rely too heavily on the learning aids. (I know the name is now MyLab Math – but it sounds wrong to me!) In particular, many students use the “View An Example” in an attempt to mimic their way to a correct answer by replacing the “5” in the example for a “7” in the problem. I think we can all agree that this is not an effective way to learn,…
Last week I made a post about using quizzes in MyLab. Today I will expand on that topic to include personalized homework. In MyLab you can use the results of a quiz to load a personalized homework assignment. These are powerful tools, as they help students to determine which topics will require further study and then generates a homework assignment focused on those topics. Creating Personalized Homework I begin by making the quiz first. In my current algebra classes I…
Since the beginning of MyMathLab, I have incorporated quizzes into my courses. Creating a quiz is identical to creating a homework assignment, and many MyLab Math texts come with quizzes already loaded to copy into your course. Quizzes do differ in a couple of ways from homework assignments. Learning Aids Learning aids are automatically turned off. Students who over rely on “Help Me Solve This” or “View An Example” will hopefully realize this while taking the quiz. (I like to…
Last night I put the finishing touches on some of the assignments for my intermediate algebra course, and I wanted to write a little bit about media assignments. In the assignments I created I added some short conceptual and example videos from the textbook. (The goal was to provide some direct instruction and review into the assignment.) I was able to do this by creating a media assignment in MyLab. Creating a media assignment is just like creating a standard…
This semester I am devoting Mondays to getting the most out of MyLab for math instructors – MyLab Monday! If you have topics related to MyLab that you’d like me to address, or if you have questions about MyLab, please reach out to me by leaving a comment or by visiting the contact page on my website: georgewoodbury.com. Starting from Scratch If you are a first time user you will need your Pearson rep to create an account for you….