Working in MyMathLab
Note: This tutorial was originally written for my Elementary Algebra course. However, most of it still applies to College Algebra. While the screenshots and text refer to Elementary Algebra (or MATD 0370), you should find things working basically the same way in College Algebra. Please contact me if something seems unclear.
Other important stuff
There are several other important tools you need to check out in the Course Compass/MyMathLab software:
Discussion boards
If you click on "Discussion Board" in the menu inside Course Compass, it will bring up the online message board where you can post questions and answer questions from other students on how to work problems and any questions about the software:
Notice that I have set up a separate message board for each chapter, as well as one to review for each test. I would like to make this the main place where students ask questions and either other students answer them or I do; that way, everyone benefits when questions get asked, like in a classroom course. (Also, you can earn "class participation" credit for posting questions and answering questions posted by others.) Sometimes, when students email me with a question, I might ask them to go on the message boards and ask me there, especially if I think your question might be helpful to others. Generally, I will give other students time to answer before I jump in and answer things; this encourages everyone to try their hand at explaining things (you actually learn a lot trying to explain math to others) and also gives everyone a chance to pile up some class participation credit. However, if nobody answers after a while (or I feel like the answers need to be expanded upon a bit), I will jump in and post something as well. But the point of the message boards is as much about you helping each other as about me helping you. Also, if you are having some trouble with the software, please feel free to post there as well.
Before you start posting on the message boards, please be sure you read my guidelines on using the message boards. (When I refer to "Blackboard", I'm talking about the Course Compass message boards as well; Course Compass is actually built on an older version of Blackboard.)
Online gradebook
I'm sure most of you will wander over here fairly often. In order to see your grades, click on "Check Your Grades" in the menu bar:
You should notice several things here: First, of course, is your grade. Notice that you can show all grades or only specific type of grades or recent grades by clicking on the little menu above the grades. Also, if you click on the "Review" link next to a quiz or homework, you can go back and review which problems you missed and get help fixing them (at which point you might want to retake the quiz/homework).
Another really useful feature of the gradebook is the "Show Overall Score" button:
(The actual percentages and total points here may be different from what you see, if I decide to change how much each part is worth for your class. Check the Policies page to find out how this will work for your class.)
Just a few comments/warnings about this screen: Take the average quoted here with a grain of salt (well, perhaps a small mountain of salt...). It computes your grade assuming you make the same score on all your other work you did on the work done so far. That is reasonable (what else could they do), but the more open space you have in those bars, the more chance there is to change your grade. This hypothetical student, for example, looks to be in deep trouble (44.9% average!). However, if you actually look, you can see that he has only taken one quiz (getting an 87.5) and sort of fooled around with 3 homework assignments (working almost no problems). Of course, if he were to continue on in his evil ways like this (no homework = not a good idea), he wouldn't do very well in the course, but he hasn't actually taken any tests yet (which will make a huge difference in his grade). So, this is just to give you a vague idea of how things are shaping up.
Also, notice the little bar chart in the middle; as you do more homework, quizzes, and tests, these bars will begin to fill in further. The height of each bar represents how much each category counts towards your grade (so, all tests and the final exam count for way more than anything else). As you do more homework, quizzes, and tests, the bars will begin to fill up. As a general rule of thumb, the more full the bars are, the more accurate the average here will be in predicting your class grade. (The shading of the bars gives you an idea of what the actual grade is, but the numbers are more useful for that.)
Also, if you are a little unclear on how I actually compute your average, the table down at the bottom should clear this up. You have to find the average within each category (quiz, tests, homework, other), then multiply times the points per category. It's a little more complicated, since not everything within each category is weighted the same (the final exam, for example, counts for more than the other tests; each written homework packets counts as 10 online homework assignments, since each packet contains multiple sections). However, the software computes these averages for you and you can get a reasonable feeling for how things are going by looking here. When all the bars are full at the end of the semester, your final grade will be determined, but anytime before then, there is still room for change (depending on how you do on the final exam and other remaining work, for example). So, use this screen as a guide to how things are going, but don't get too obsessed with it; for example, if you did really well on the first test, then poorly on the second one, your test average wouldn't look good at all (it would be halfway between), but since you would have 2 more tests and a final exam still to take (i.e., the "Tests" bar is still pretty empty), you could easily bring that up with a good grade on test 3. (For our hypothetical student here, he needs to quit fooling around and start actually doing the homework. However, there is plenty of time to fix things this early on.)
Course website
When is written homework due? What edition of the book do I need? What are these "Orientation Forms" I read about somewhere? What are the teacher's office hours (and what was his name again)? What should I do if I'm running behind?
For the answers to these and many more fascinating (or at least important) questions, be sure you carefully read through my course website. You can click on "Course Website" from inside Course Compass or click on "Elementary Algebra" in the menu on the left of this page to go wander through there.
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