Maximize the Connect Experience in Your Classroom
Congratulations! You are on your way to a new type of teaching and learning experience; one that will engage your students in ways never before possible!
Check out some reasons why Connect is so beneficial to include in your course, as well as tips on how to best leverage it throughout the course term. Trust us, your students will thank you for it!
Instructor Satisfaction Tips
The Connect Time Saver
Why Metacognition Matters
Instructor Satisfaction Tips and Tricks
To get you started, we wanted to share some quick tips and tricks from the 84% of instructors who are already requiring Connect in their courses.
Hover over each segment of Connect to see how you can better leverage it in your classroom.
Quality of content and relevance to coursework
Satisfaction Rating: 81%
Tip: Connect gives you the flexibility to create learning assignments based on your specific class objectives, consolidating all your course materials and assignments in one place. Students appreciate how it helps keep them organized. Everything you need to make your class as relevant and engaging as possible is right there at your fingertips. Using an LMS? Integration and grade sync is simple, too.
eBook access
Satisfaction Rating: 80%
Tip: Ensure all students have access to all course materials on Day 1 though Connect. SmartBook allows you to assign and track reading assignments so you know your students are reading, and priority content is highlighted within the reading experience so your students can focus on the most important learning objectives.
Ease of use (e.g. getting started, assignments, grading)
Satisfaction Rating: 77%
Tip: Set aside time in advance of the semester start to familiarize yourself with the platform and set it up for your class. The good news is the time you put in now pays off later, as once you’ve created your course, you can just copy it for your sections. Instructors who have used Connect for multiple terms say that once you’ve set it up once, it only takes 15 minutes to do for other classes.
Quality of quizzing/ assessment content & capabilities
Satisfaction Rating: 73%
Tip: When setting up your course in Connect, be sure to set up autograding. This gives you the opportunity to focus more of your energy on teaching and monitoring student performance.
Reporting analytics features/functionality
Satisfaction Rating: 71%
Tip: Pay close attention to data from Connect and SmartBook reports. This reporting gives you deeper insights into your students’ learning and performance in real-time, so you can gain insights to help you optimize your class interactions based on your students’ learning needs or to address individual student needs outside of class.
Intuitive user experience
Satisfaction Rating: 70%
Tip: Recommend to your students to play around in the platform at the beginning of the term, so they get used to its functions and capabilities. You could even make it a first-day-of-class assignment so they can see for themselves how easy Connect is to use! Plus, don’t forget to assign the new Student to Student videos on navigating Connect from the question picker.
Diverse types of learning or assignment content
Satisfaction Rating: 68%
Tip: When setting up Connect, give your students different types of learning and assignment content to have them practice skills you’ll be asking them to apply on the exam. Use different question types for assignments, so your students aren’t always answering multiple choice questions, and let them digest course content in different ways through audio, video, and reading.
Content adapts dynamically based on concept mastery
Satisfaction Rating: 67%
Tip: Within SmartBook in Connect, there is the “Practice” functionality where your students answer assessment questions to reinforce their comprehension after reading. Assign SmartBook as part of the grade so students complete this regularly. Students then have access to personalized reports to show them which topics they’re struggling with to study and retain knowledge better.
LMS Integration
Satisfaction Rating: 56%
Tip: If you haven’t already, install the Connect app to integrate with your LMS. Then use our Quick Start Guides and Admin Guides if you need help pairing your courses and
The Connect Time Saver
You don’t need more hours in the day; you just need Connect! In fact, 63% of instructors who use Connect say that it saves them time.
The data shows that instructors who use Connect spend 72% less time on administrative tasks, and 90% more time on active learning experiences.
Time Saving Tips
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Get Trained: Schedule time to get hands on with our Implementation Team to get started off right.
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Plan ahead: Set aside course creation time over the summer to get done before the beginning of semester stress starts.
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Integrate with Your LMS: Integrate Connect with your LMS to add Connect assignments and record Connect assignment grades directly into your LMS workflow and gradebook.
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Set Dates: Finalize assignment dates in your syllabus and add them to Connect.
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Get Familiar: Get to know the Connect interface and navigation from the student perspective – just click on the Student View button on your course home page.
Why Metacognition Matters
Personalize Your Students’ Learning with Connect & SmartBook
SmartBook presents students with questions related to course content, asking them to rate their level of confidence. This is where adaptive learning begins! The students' stated level of confidence is compared with the accuracy of their answers. SmartBook continuously reviews this information, helping students gain a deeper understanding of the concepts they know, and more importantly, the concepts they don’t know, help make study time more efficient and effective.
Tips to Help Students Get the Most from SmartBook:
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Assign Readings: In Connect, assigning “reading” and “practice” through SmartBook help students understand their knowledge gaps, allowing them to effectively prepare for class.
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Leverage Reports to Shape Lectures: Connect and SmartBook offer a wealth of reports to help instructors gain a deeper knowledge of student performance. Data on baseline knowledge, student confidence, and user behavior (like time to completion) can help you shape class time to best address student challenges, skip over what they know, and take learning to a higher level.
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Use Insights to Drive Performance: Individualized data helps students understand where they are succeeding, where they are struggling, and everything in between. This data can help students make the most use of their study time. Likewise, by reviewing "Time Spent in LearnSmart" vs. "Student Performance" helps students see how their study time affects their performance.
"Overall, Connect has allowed me to fine-tune my lecture. I am able to go into detail quicker in the lecture period since the students have completed their SmartBook modules and have an understanding of chapter topics... Students tend to generate more detailed questions now, specific to the topics discussed."
-Professor Vanessa Hörmann, professor of Biology, Broward College
Let Reporting Influence Your Course
Precision matters in today’s academic environment. For instructors, Connect offers a variety of reports to help assess performance by individual student or for the whole class. From progress on assignments, to metacognitive awareness, to identifying the most challenging learning objectives, Connect reports provide instructors with the deep insights they need to make informed decisions about their course, as early as the first assignment.
Tips for using Connect's reporting and insights capabilities
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Use Connect Insight: This visual analytics dashboard provides easily digestible information on student performance by assignment, topic, or even time on task.
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Use the “At-Risk Report”: Identify students who might be vulnerable to dropping out of your class or are struggling to keep up. This early alert system allows you to be more proactive in reaching out to students to help them overcome their challenges.
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Tailor lectures and class time using reports: SmartBook reports provide insights on the topics that your students struggle with most, allowing you to refine lectures and class time to best address student needs.
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Encourage your students to use reports: Connect’s reports can help students track their own performance, allowing them to make more informed decisions about study time.
“The ability to tailor a student’s learning experience toward the things the student doesn’t know rather than what the student has already grasped is incredible, especially when there are huge numbers of students involved. This experience allows the course to be individualized for each student rather than offering a one-size-fits-all, 'canned’ course experience.”
-Professor Tiffiny Guidry, University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa
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