Professor Robert Hagood knows the value of practice problems in his course, but felt limited in the amount of homework he could assign due to the time it took to manually grade and review it in class. He found that Connect® Physics enabled him to assign a sufficient number of practice problems for students without adding to his grading time or using valuable class time to review. Not only do his students now get immediate feedback on their homework, but Professor Hagood is able to monitor individual student progress, as well as focus on areas of difficulty for entire classes. Read this CASE STUDY to learn how implementing Connect Physics led to a noticeable increase in student engagement and academic performance.

Continue reading …

Professor Frank Wray was looking for a solution that would help him to offer all class content online while adapting to his pedagogical style. He found that Connect® Biology not only met this need, but also increased student performance, engagement and retention in all of his courses. Students demonstrated higher mastery of concepts by using LearnSmart adaptive study modules, which monitor student performance and adapt instantly based on their knowledge. Read this CASE STUDY to learn more about his experience with Connect.

“Connect with LearnSmart has helped engage the learner in a way I didn’t think was possible,” noted Professor Wray. He plans to continue to refine his courses within Connect Biology, and to use it for both online and traditional courses.

An important goal for Pace University has been to offer all of its core courses online, and in 2009, Public Speaking was one of two remaining courses that needed to be modified in order to meet this goal. Professor Maria Luskay was able to change that by creating a comprehensive online course with the tools she found in Connect® Lucas and making the online section just as academically rigorous as the face-to-face course. Read this CASE STUDY to learn how her course became a successful model that was presented to the institution’s Board of Trustees for what online teaching and learning can be.

“Connect is an excellent resource,” Professor Luskay says. “It changes the entire learning process. Students are already online all the time, and with this, they have so many resources at their fingertips that they haven’t had before.” Demand for the online Public Speaking course at Pace University is growing, so they will be offering additional sections with Connect.

Professor Paige Wideman wanted to improve the online Art Appreciation course experience at Northern Kentucky University so that students would have more opportunities to learn and understand art techniques and processes, and to apply that knowledge. Knowing that these students would have no classroom experience or personal contact with her, she needed a solution that would allow students to interact and engage with the artwork while allowing her to closely track their progress. Read this CASE STUDY to learn how Connect® Art provided both, leading to an increase in exam score averages and an eight point improvement in pass rates.

She says, “I am extremely pleased with Connect. The online assignments help to prepare students with a better understanding of art. It is a great tool to help me engage at-risk students and give them the guidance they need in order to retain them and have them succeed in the course.”

Professor Wideman now plans to implement Connect in her on-campus sections as well. As coordinator of Art Appreciation, she will require all instructors to use Connect in their courses on campus.

Instructors using Connect have experienced an average 6% increase in grades, 13% increase in passing rates, 22% increase in class attendance, and 23% increase in retention rates as shown in the just published Connect Effectiveness Study!

Faculty and administration at higher education institutions have long understood the need to engage students in their coursework inside and outside of lecture halls because of the multiple benefits that student engagement brings. Instructors want students to fully understand the course material; come to class well prepared, ready to learn and discuss more advanced topics of study; improve their academic performance and, in turn, increase their long-term retention at the institution and their ability to succeed post-graduation. In today’s digital era, engagement necessarily means connecting students, faculty and the coursework in a digitally interactive, real-time, full-circle way that extends beyond the physical and virtual classrooms.

Data has been aggregated and analyzed from 18 diverse colleges in the United States, and has proven that McGraw-Hill Connect has led to:

• ● Reduction in administrative time for instructors
• ● Increase in effectiveness of lectures and engagement of students
• ● Rise in student confidence and retention rates
• ● Improvement in test scores and overall grades

  
  The difference Connect makes for instructors and students is significant:

  
  “Connect has changed the way that I lecture because I see real-time data and feedback. This allows me to adapt my lectures to suit my students’ needs.”
  – Dr. Jason Overby, College of Charleston

  
  “Connect is an invaluable support tool for me because I know my students are thinking about class even when they aren’t there. They review the information we covered in class on their own time, and are able to easily access a broad range of study tools while they complete homework assignments.”
  – Sheryl Hadley, Dept. Chair, Johnson County Community College

  
  Read the full report here, or visit www.mcgrawhillconnect.com to learn more!