Mastering Biology for Majors Tour Video Transcript

This is a transcript of the video on the Educator Features page and Student Features page.

Hi, I'm here to talk to you about some of the exciting features you'll find in Mastering Biology for Majors.

This is an online homework, tutorial and assessment program that helps biology majors quickly master concepts. Students benefit from the self-paced tutorials with wrong-answer feedback and hints to help them stay on track.

First up, we look at how to help students who struggle to learn key biology concepts. They would benefit from interacting with the material  in addition to reading about complex processes in their textbook and listening to the lecture. So with BioFlix Turtorials...

Students are presented with an engaging way to learn challenging topics. Each activity begins with a 3-D, movie-quality animation that places the topic in a real-world context. Instructors can show these animations in class, and also assign them with interactive tutorials that include wrong-answer feedback that coaches them to learn from their mistakes and tracks their work in the Mastering gradebook.

Next, we look at how many biology topics can be explored through the use of video and animations. Yet many professors don't have time to find films that are well-suited for the classroom. And when students do see videos, they sometimes need guidance to help them focus on teaching points rather than just being entertained. That's why the new, Assignable Short Films produced by HHMI's BioInteractive...

Assist instructors in not only using these videos to engage students in biology class lectures, but also in assigning the video activity as homework to reinforce concepts. The BioInteractive Short Films are accompanied by assessment questions that complement the concepts explored within the films.

From there, many instructors are looking for ways to foster a more engaging classroom experience. Some want to flip their classroom while many others are just looking for ways to increase student participation.

Learning Catalytics is an interactive, student response tool that uses students' smartphones, tablets, or laptops to engage them in more sophisticated tasks and thinking. You can pose a variety of open-ended questions that help your students develop critical thinking skills, while monitoring responses to find out where they're struggling, allowing you to adjust your instructional strategy in real-time. You can also use Learning Catalytics to automatically group students for peer-to-peer learning. Plus their work in Learning Catalytics feeds into the Mastering gradebook.

Not every student learns the same way and at the same rate. And now, thanks to advances in adaptive learning technology, you no longer have to teach as if they do. Mastering uses real time data and analytics, to reinforce concepts that target each student's strengths and weaknesses.

Dynamic Study Modules help students study effectively on their own, using adaptive algorithms that adjust the content based on each student's understanding of the concepts.

Students complete an initial set of questions with a unique answer format that asks them to indicate their confidence level. Once completed, Dynamic Study Modules provide students with explanations of the answer, using materials from the text. The questions repeat until the student can answer them all correctly and confidently. These modules can be accessed on smartphones, tablets, and computers, so students can study virtually anywhere, anytime.

Adaptive Follow-Up Assignments take advantage of the teaching moment that follows each homework assignment. Students can address their misconceptions right away, before they take root and before you need to move on to the next topic. Here's how they work...

Once they finish their homework, students are immediately directed to the Adaptive Follow-Up. The adaptive learning engine presents questions to address each student's individual gaps in understanding. Students work through the questions sets until they demonstrate an understanding of the material, or until they work through the number of questions that you specify.

Behind the scenes, the adaptive learning engine identifies which concepts the student knows and doesn't know. It analyzes past performance on assignments, and selects question types that were most effective for the student on previous assignments, plus question types that were helpful for students with similar performance profiles. Each new question set adapts to results on previous sets.

Finally, we explore how Mastering Biology can help instructors avoid spending too much class time teaching basic scientific skills. Many biology majors need to learn--or re-learn-basic scientific skills, which can take away from class time that could otherwise focus on the core concepts of biology. And while some students do well on basic exam questions, they sometimes struggle with test questions that require more critical thinking and application skills. But with Assignable Scientific Skill-Building Exercises...

Instructors can hold students accountable for learning these skills outside of class so that they are prepared to apply them in class. With this instruction and practice, students will be able to answer the more challenging test questions that require scientific skills, and they will also be better equipped to tackle the more sophisticated “Solve It” tutorials in Mastering Biology.

And there you have it. That was a quick look at just a handful of the valuable features in Mastering Biology for Majors. If you want to learn more about Mastering Biology for Majors, go to Mastering BiologyforMajors.com. And if you want to find out about all of Pearson's MyLab and Mastering products, be sure to check out Pearsonmylabandmastering.com. Thanks for watching.