2. At Pearson our mission is to help students learn. One way we
pursue this mission is through personalised learning programs such
as Mastering.
Mastering is the leading online homework, tutorial, and assessment
product designed with a single purpose in mind: to improve the
academic success of science and engineering students, one student
at a time. And because Mastering comes from Pearson, you can be
confident you have an experienced partner committed to you and
your students’ success...every step of the way.
With over 2 million students using Mastering in 2012, Pearson is
committed to helping students in the sciences and engineering
succeed both academically and in their careers.
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‘It is a good study tool in all, with easy to
grasp concepts made easier by the
interactive design of the program. I would
both recommend and use it again.
– Joshua Page, Student, Edith Cowan University
To improved student results through personalised learning
“The explanation of why the
answer to a question was
right or wrong helped heaps.”
Amy French, Student, MasteringA&P user,
Monash University
3. Conceived
to emulate
the office-hour
experience
Mastering was conceived to emulate the one-on-one office hour
experience, which is often cited as the most effective way to help students
understand course material.
Through specific wrong-answer feedback, Socratic and declarative hints,
and with the addition of new learning features, Mastering is enhancing
personalised coaching for each student.
Mastering: Now even more personalised*
NEW! Adaptive Follow Up is Mastering’s assignment type that provides each student with personalised
homework that covers the topics and core pre-requisites struggled with most in your homework.
NEW! Dynamic Study Modules enable students to practice science on their own in the areas needed
most in order to improve performance in the course.
See pages 7–8 for details.
*Available for select Pearson textbooks.
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4. Mastering helps students prepare for assessments
Data-supported
evidence of
effectiveness
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Data-supported evidence of Mastering’s effectiveness
MyPsychLab has already been successful in transferring
our approach to lecturing from a tradition, information
transmission model, t thinking about how to use lectures
to engage students in more advanced discussion of the
topics, having already mastered the foundational concepts
through their online learning activities
—Wendy McKenzie, MyPsychLab, Monash University’
0
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
MEANMQGRADE(%)
WEEKLY CONTENT
M
acrom
olecules
C
ells
Enzym
es&
respiration
D
N
A
and
chrom
osom
es
M
itosis,m
eiosisM
endelism
H
um
an
genetics
Plantdiversity
Endosym
biosis
Anim
aldiversityEvolution
Ecology
10
20
without MasteringBiology 2007 with MasteringBiology 2008
Weekly miniquiz mark (mean standard error)
5. Effectiveness
The positive impact of Mastering on student success
Rich metadata reports, utilising data gathered by Mastering,
inform our authors and editorial teams about the quality
of our printed content and ways to improve it.
For example, for a test bank question Mastering provides advice on the
effectiveness of distracters, and gives useful information on an item’s difficulty
level using an item response model. This type of targeted information
helps our authors make content decisions efficiently and accurately.
More Students Earned
As and Bs,
University of Kentucky,
MasteringChemistry®
Mastering data enhances
our print products
4
40%
45%
35%
30%
20%
25%
15%
10%
5%
0%
PERCENTOFSTUDENTS
GRADE
A B C D F W D/F/W
2009:Non-Pearson text
and homework system
2010:Pearson text
and MasteringChemistry
Consistent use of the online tutorials
throughout the semester seems to be linked to
high performance in the course’
—Jo Devine, MasteringEngineering, USQ
6. NEW!
Publisher Assignments
Pre-built Courses
NEW! Calendar Features
Easy to get started and easy to use
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Mastering provides a rich and flexible set of pre-built courses and assignments
to get you started quickly. Use them as is or customise to fit your needs.
When creating a course,
instructors now have the option
of copying a complete set of pre-
built assignments for each chapter,
containing the most frequently
assigned questions in a “best of”
homework assignment, curated
by experienced Mastering users.
Choose from a set of pre-built model courses to
use as a starting point for your own course. Pre-built
courses have been:
• Created by educators experienced in using
Mastering.
• Pre-populated with recommended assignments or
to be used stand-alone.
• Designed to go with your Pearson textbook.
The Course Home default page
now features a Calendar View
displaying upcoming assignments
and due dates.
• Instructors can schedule
assignments by dragging and
dropping the assignment onto a
date in the calendar. If the due
date of an assignment needs to
change, instructors can drag the
assignment to the new due date
and change the “available from
and to dates” accordingly.
• The calendar view gives
students a syllabus-style
overview of due dates, making
it easy to see all assignments
due in a given month.
7. Easytogetstartedanduse
NEW! Items Flagged to Enable Easy Updating!
Content you can count on
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The Mastering item library is continually improving due to the dynamic nature of its
problems, resulting in content that is driven by student performance. Each problem is
thoroughly analysed by reviewing data (including wrong answers, time to completion,
and hints used) generated through classroom use with real students. We make
corrections to improve problems that have ambiguous answer choices, ineffectual
detractors, or tricky language and continue to strengthen each problem through
ongoing review of the data generated by real student responses.
Assignable Problem Types in Mastering*
*Not all disciplines have all problem types
• Tutorials: Multi-part items with hints
and feedback
• Reading Questions: Questions
to assess comprehension of your
textbook content
• Test Bank: Single-part items from
your textbook
• Coaching Activities: Interactive
exercises with hints and/or feedback
• Activities: Multi-part items with
animations
• End-of-Chapter: Single- and
multi-part items from your textbook
• Lab: Laboratory activities and
assessment
• My Items: Imported items, edited
publisher items, or user-created items
8. Designed to help students where
they need it most, the Adaptive
Follow-Up Assignments give
students individual help on
topics they struggle with in your
homework.
Pick the grading, length
and due date settings and
Mastering will do the rest.
Check the Gradebook for
scores and details on each
student’s work.
NEW! Adaptive
Follow-Up*
Assignment Type
How it works:
1. You set the grading settings for the Adaptive
Follow-up Assignment.
2. Once the student completes your assigned
homework, the adaptive engine selects the best
items for the Adaptive Follow-Up Assignment,
based on the student’s performance on your
homework, including any core pre-requisite topics.
3. The Adaptive Follow-Up Assignment is broken into
sets of questions so that later sets adapt based on
the student’s performance on earlier sets; all sets
target the gaps in each student’s understanding.
Emulate the office-hour experience
A core mission of Mastering is to emulate the one-on-one office hour
experience. With our new learning features, Mastering offers more
personalised learning to each student.
Adaptive Follow-up
*Available for selected titles only.
Contact your Pearson Education Consultant for details.
9. AddedPersonalization
NEW!
Self-Study Modules*
How it works:
1. Students receive an initial
set of questions, with a
unique answer format that
asks them to indicate how
confident they are about
the answer.
2. After answering each
set, students review
learning material that is
taken directly from the
textbook and is associated
with each question.
3. Once students review
the learning material, they
are presented with a new
set of questions. Students
cycle through this dynamic
process of test-learn-retest
until they achieve mastery
of the textbook material.
*Available for selected titles only.
Contact your Pearson Education
Consultant for details.
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Dynamic Study Modules
Dynamic Study Modules
in Mastering help students
quickly and effectively
learn the information they
need to know to be more
successful on their tests,
quizzes and exams.
Created to allow students
to study on their own,
this dynamic solution
ensures your students
are better prepared to
achieve higher scores on
their tests and exams.
10. The Gradebook records all
scores for automatically graded
assignments.
• Shades of red highlight struggling
students and challenging
assignments.
Diagnostics provide unique
insight into class and student
performance. With a single click,
charts summarise the most difficult
problems, vulnerable students,
grade distribution, and score
improvement over the duration of
the course.
• The problems you select for
an assignment are tagged to
publisher-provided learning
outcomes.
• You can also add your own
learning outcomes and associate
those with the assignment
content.
• You can now track student
performance against the
publisher-provided learning
outcomes and your own
learning outcomes—both at the
individual student and class level.
Publisher-provided
Learning Outcomes
Gradebook
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Data you can use
11. Customer Support
Can’t find the answer to your
question? We’re here to help.
Contact 24/7 Support:
Call us: 1-888-547-4415
Mon–Fri, 8 am–8 pm
(Eastern Time, US and Canada)
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Experienced partner
Teacher Talks: Ideas that Inspire
Teacher Talks are inspirational speeches from
some of the world’s best educators. Designed
to energise the leaders on the front lines of our
educational system, these videos deliver ideas
on how to be more effective teachers.
Mastering Leadership Conference
The Mastering Leadership Conference brings
faculty together to support innovation and
excellence in teaching across science. It creates
a supportive network for exploring new facets
of teaching and learning, in using the Mastering
platform specifically and technology in general.
Online Conference
Designed for both experienced instructors and
those new to Mastering, Pearson Education’s
Speaking About Mastering online conferences
are educational, illuminating, and full of insider
tips and information on how to get the most
out of Mastering.
Make Learning Part of the Grade
This publication shares results and best
practices of using Mastering in the classroom.
*Access all these community resources from the Product
Info > In the News tab of any Mastering website.
Faculty Advisors Offer
Peer-to-Peer Assistance
Faculty Advisors are college instructors
experienced in teaching with Mastering
and available to share their instructional
strategies using Mastering with you.
• Ask an Expert
From within your course in Mastering,
you can quickly complete a short form
and send a question to experienced
Mastering users (Faculty Advisors).
Building a Community*
Providing Support
