Using McGraw Hill's Connect in Intro to College Writing: Tips and Instructions, Summaries of History

Download Using McGraw Hill's Connect in Intro to College Writing: Tips and Instructions and more Summaries History in PDF only on Docsity! 1 “Make your McGraw Hill Connect experience a great one” Tips for using McGraw Hill’s Connect in Intro to College Writing 2 Dear Blackhawk Technical College students, At McGraw Hill, we are always working to help you see great results with our learning technology (IE – graduation!), and to that end we want to outline some measures you can take to ensure a positive learning experience with us. If you encounter a frustration in Connect, you may call, submit an email submission to, or chat with our technical support teams… but the document below will help you trouble shoot the most common issues on your own… which we hope, will save you valuable time. McGraw Hill Customer Care site (for chat and email): http://mpss.mhhe.com/ McGraw Hill Customer Care phone number: 1-800-331-5094 5 The next step in LearnSmart Achieve is to select a study schedule. Choose the schedule you think will work best with your personal study habits. You can adjust this study schedule later on, if needed. The study schedule is there to help organize your work and ensure you finish the material by the due date. Once you have chosen a student schedule, you will be ready to start your LearnSmart Achieve work. You will be brought to a screen like the example below: 6 This is the main home page you will see every time you work on your LearnSmart Achieve assignment(s). There are several key pieces of information in boxes on this screen:  Assigned Units (bottom boxes): The units on the bottom of the screen are the selections of material your instructor has chosen for you to work on. You may have one piece of material assigned at a time or several selections available for you. The names on each these boxes will correspond to the assignment you saw on your Connect homepage. You will be highlighted on a specific box, indicating this is the particular assignment you clicked on in Connect and will be working on now. If you click on a unit at the bottom and see the learn button is greyed out this means you either need to return to Connect and click on the assignment from the home page. Or your instructor will make this topic available to you at a later date.  Due Date/Overall Progress Bar: The Overall Progress bar is designed to help keep you on track with your work. There is an arrow to indicate where you should currently be in your work and a final arrow at the end of the bar that indicates the due date for the assignment. The arrow that says “You Should Be Here Now” will continue to adjust over the length of your assignment. Try to keep pace with that arrow to ensure you are able to finish your work on time. The progress percent (%) score is shown refers to how much work you’ve finished/understood of the material assigned in the particular assignment. Keep in mind each unit (box) is a separate assignment and a separate score. So, for example, you could have 100% on Topic 1.4: Writing Process but only 50% progress on the next, Topic 1.5: Thesis Statement and Support in an Essay. Make sure to click on each box for your score or go to your LearnSmart Achieve reports tab at the top of your screen. Tip: The assignment’s Overall Progress number is your grade. For example, if your instructor has decided to give you 100 points per each unit (box) and your Overall Progress for one of the boxes is 75% you will receive 75 points for this assignment.  Unit / Assignment Description (large box in the middle): This provides a detailed breakdown of what you’ll be learning in each topic. Next to each learning objective is a green circle. This circle will turn in to a check as you begin to complete your work in each section.  “Learn” button: Click the “Learn” button to get started on the work for the topic you’ve currently selected. 7 How to Work Through LearnSmart Achieve Assignment(s) To begin a LearnSmart assignment, click on the “Learn” button on your LearnSmart Achieve home screen. Upon entering the assignment a coach will pop up and begin to explain the instructions to you. If this is your first time using LearnSmart, it is important to listen carefully to the coach’s instructions. You can either listen to them, read them, or both. When finished, click on the “OK” button, located on the bottom of your screen. LearnSmart Achieve will present your lesson in three different steps: Tune In, Focus, and Practice. Each time you go into a LearnSmart Achieve assignment, you will see your lessons go through these three different phases. 1) Tune In phase. This is where you start. This phase will ask you several questions about the material your instructor has assigned. This lets the program get to know you better and establish what lessons will be the most helpful for you. The questions you receive will look like this: 10 3) Practice phase. After you have finished the Focus phase, you will then move on to Practice. During the Practice phase, you will be asked several questions about the lessons you just went through in the Focus phase. This is designed so the program can see what you’ve learned and so it can adjust for areas you still do not understand. The questions will be very similar in format to what you saw during the Tune In phase. In addition to getting feedback for your answer choices, you will have a “This May Help You” option for questions you are getting wrong. If you click on the reading or video found under the “This May Help You” box on the right, you will be brought back to a previous slide or explanation of this particular topic. This feature helps you to refresh your memory so that you’re able to complete the Practice-phase questions faster and avoid getting material wrong. 11 You can keep track of your overall progress (score) while working in your LearnSmart Achieve by looking at the top of your LearnSmart Achieve screen for the Assignment Progress bar. The current Overall Progress (score) will be listed to the right. It’s important to remember that LearnSmart Achieve is an adaptive program. This means that the better you do, the faster LearnSmart will move you through its lessons. However, if you do not understand something, LearnSmart will adapt or change to give you more opportunities to do better. This could mean tackling additional lessons or questions, or going to the “Recharge” tab located back on your LearnSmart Achieve home screen. As you continue work in LearnSmart Achieve you will see your homescreen adapting to the work you complete. Your Overall Progress bar will continue to adjust and show your work / score. 12 Understanding My Grade / Results in LearnSmart Achieve A. Reports To access your LearnSmart Achieve reports, click on the “Reports” button located at the top of your LearnSmart home page. This will allow you to select several different report and practice options. To look at the scores for all of your LearnSmart assignments, select “% Topic Scores” on the right-hand side. Once you click on the “% Topic Score” button, you will be able to view all the available LearnSmart topics. Use the expansion buttons on the right to open up the units. Your results will be listed for 15 Navigate to the bottom of your connect page & click on Troubleshooting Once you click on Troubleshooting the system will analyze your browser & operating system & will tell you if any components are not compatible with Connect. 16 If you are using a browser that is not compatible you will want to download & use a compatible browser or any additional components needed. How to clear Browser Cache Internet Explorer 8/9 1. Click Tools (from the menu bar) 2. Click Internet Options 3. Under the Browsing history section, Click Delete 4. Check the check boxes next to "Temporary Internet Files "and "Cookies". 5. Click "Delete" 6. Click the Privacy tab 7. Click the Advanced button 8. Ensure that the "Override automatic cookie handling" check box is checked. 9. Ensure that the "Always also session cookies" check box is checked. 10. Click OK 11. Click OK 12. Close Internet Explorer (all tabs/windows must be closed) 13. Reopen Internet Explorer 17 Mozilla Firefox 6 & 7 (Windows PC): 1. Click Tools (from the menu bar) 2. Click Clear Recent History At the top, you'll see "Time range to clear:" Choose "Everything" from the drop down box. 3. Ensure that only "Cookies" and "Cache" are checked. 4. Click the "Clear Now" button. 5. Click Tools (from the menu bar) 6. Click "Options" 7. Click on the "Privacy" tab at the top 8. In the "Firefox will" drop down box, choose "Use custom settings for history" 9. Check the box next to "Accept cookies from sites" and the box next to "Accept third-party cookies." In the "Keep until:" drop down box, ensure that "they expire" is selected. 10. Click OK. 11. Close Mozilla-Firefox (all tabs/windows must be closed) 12. Reopen Mozilla-Firefox 20 Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 (MAC): 1. Click Firefox (from the menu bar) 2. Click Preferences 3. Click the Privacy tab 4. In the "Firefox will" drop down box, choose "Use custom settings for history" Check the box next to "Accept cookies from sites" and the box next to "Accept third-party cookies.". In the "Keep until:" drop down box, ensure that "they expire" is selected. 5. Ensure that the "Accept cookies from sites" check box is checked. 6. Click the "Show Cookies" button. 7. Click the "Remove All Cookies" button. 8. Close the window. 9. Close the window. 10. Quit Firefox by clicking on Firefox (from the menu bar), then click "Quit Firefox" (All tabs/windows must be closed) 11. Reopen Mozilla-Firefox 21 Google Chrome 7 and 8 (MAC): 1. Click the wrench icon in the top/right corner of the browser 2. Click "Options" from the drop down menu 3. Click the "Under the Hood" tab 4. Click the "Clear browsing data..." button 5. Check the box next to "Empty the cache" and "Delete cookies and other site data" 6. From the "Clear data from this period:" drop down box, choose "Everything" 7. Click the "Clear browsing data" button 8. Click the "Content settings..." button 9. For "Cookie Settings", ensure that "Allow local data to be set (Recommended)" is selected. 10. Click Close 11. Click Close 12. Close Google Chrome (all tabs/windows must be closed) 13. Reopen Google Chrome