Teaching and Learning blog

A recent survey sponsored by Inside Higher Education and College Pulse found that over 75% of undergraduate students will have student loan debt upon graduation. Of those students nearly half of the respondents do not know what their monthly payments will be. In the same study, about 25% of the students reported having credit debt and about 15% reported having car loans.¹

Finite mathematics texts often include a chapter on the mathematics of finance, and for decades these books have covered topics such as amortization of consumer loans with an emphasis on home mortgages. Although mortgage loan examples are helpful because they often last thirty years and can involve large amounts of accrued interest, as the number of first-generation college students increase, a growing number of students do not come from families that paid a mortgage for their residence.

To make the mathematics of finance more relevant to students’ lived experiences, we emphasize examples that involve student loans, auto loans, and credit cards in Mathematics with Applications and Finite Mathematics.

Student loan examples

Even at a public university, the average amount of student loan debt in 2021 was $30,030 for a bachelor’s degree. At an interest rate of 2.75%, that leads to a monthly payment of $286.52. Over the course of 10 years, the total interest paid on the loan will be $4,352.40.

Due to the rise of interest rates since the pandemic, the interest rate for student loans will be 5.50% for the 2023-2024 year,. To demonstrate the impact this will have on monthly payments, an instructor could ask the class, “With a current interest rate of 5.50%, how much does the monthly payment increase on the same amount borrowed of $30,030 on a 10-year payment plan? How much total interest will accrue over the course of the payment plan?” The answer shows that the monthly payment increases by $39.38, which may not appear to students to be a significant increase per month, but the overall interest paid over the course of the loan will more than double, to $9,078.

Auto loan examples

The changes in the U.S. economy have also affected interest rates for auto loans. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System reported that, in November 2016, the average rate for a 6-month new auto loan from commercial banks was 4.05%. In May 2023, the same group reported an average interest rate of 7.81%. How do these changes affect monthly payments and total interest payments?

To make this even more interesting, and perhaps more relevant to students’ lives, nerdwallet.com² reported in August 2023, average auto loan interest rates by credit score and whether the automobile purchased was new or used.

There is so much breadth and depth to what Pearson can do to help you and your students achieve the best learning outcomes.  Consider the following features and benefits that eTextbooks offer. And learn why a growing audience of instructors and students are taking advantage of our remarkable Pearson+ subscription capabilities. In fact, nearly 5 million subscribers have embraced the Pearson+ subscription platform. 

To begin, we will focus on eTextbooks. They are more popular than ever. Don’t just take our word for it. A great deal of research over the past five years shows that well-designed digital content can be understood as effectively as print and offers added benefits for students.*  

Remember, not all of your students are fully acquainted with all the capabilities of eTextbooks. Take the time at the beginning of your next course to be sure you communicate all the features and benefits of any new eTextbook, as well as Pearson+. 

Affordability  

In many cases digital eTextbooks are up to 80% cheaper than traditional printed textbooks. With our Pearson+ platform, students can subscribe to their course etextbooks at one low monthly rate or pay for the semester upfront. At the end of their subscription term, students have the flexibility to cancel, renew, or change titles to accommodate their learning needs. Pearson offers a range of features that appeal to a variety of learning styles. The user experience is elegant and intuitive.  Naturally that means the navigation makes it easy for students to make their way through the content. Many of our etextbook titles have embedded audio and video to engage students and help them understand difficult concepts in the course.  Full audiobooks are available for most titles which can help with comprehension, retention, and gives students the option to listen on the go. 

In addition, no one should underestimate the value of adjusting the speed of any audio. Certain students may choose a slower speed, but many prefer to accelerate the audio for more efficiency. In addition, a student listening may strengthen comprehension further and even activate the highlighting of the text in sync with the audio. 

Interactive features like charts and diagrams make it easier for students who may prefer to explore and analyze such engaging visuals. 

Interactivity strengthens how students study 

Markup and additional interactive features make it easier for studying than ever before. They can customize the display of content. And students are happy to know that once they return to any content, the eTextbook remembers where they left off and the learner can dive right back in. 

Additional benefits for studying include:  

• Notetaking  
• Pre-built flashcards** 
• Create your own flashcards  
• Highlighting  
• Bookmarking 
• Adjusting the point size of the text  

And the robust enhanced search engine even offers an excellent sub-menu referencing groupings of relevant videos, key terms and interactive media. In fact, Pearson+ is exploring a possible new etextbook feature regarding the way students learn, from an individual experience to a social one. Students can see who else is studying, start discussions and post links and videos. The social experience within the eTextbook is global, giving all users the ability to engage. The experience is not limited to students in a certain class at a specific university.  

Encourage your students to learn in the way they learn best.  

Content Mastery 

A study by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that when students take courses that engage digitally and in-person, content mastery can occur twice as quickly, and pass rates for at-risk students can increase by 33%. 

Pearson+. Anywhere, anytime 

The Pearson+ subscription platform is the ideal way students can access eTextbooks. Among other compelling features, with Pearson+ they can consolidate all their eTextbooks, videos, audio, study tools, and supportive content all in one place. Naturally, this allows your students to work more efficiently.  

There’s an app for this 

With the Pearson+ mobile app, students can pick up at any point where they left off and learn on the go. Learners can easily read offline right in our app. So they can have more freedom to make the most of their day. Here are some of the main reasons the platform and the app are so appealing. 

Once selected, they have immediate access to the content. Students can learn on the go (with online and offline access). They can learn with their eTextbooks wherever life takes them. Pearson+ offers students instant access to their eTextbooks, videos and study tools, all in one place. With easy access through a subscription or their MyLab® or Mastering® course, our intuitive interface, enhanced search, highlights, notes, and audiobooks allow them to choose how they learn best. 

Meet your students where they are 

So why not meet students where they are, figuratively and literally. Everyone knows they are often on the run. The content is optimized for a learner’s phone or another mobile device. It’s a no-brainer for today’s tech-savvy generation. Your students are certainly accustomed to processing information from smart phones and other mobile devices.   

We are also mindful of working learners. The convenience of Pearson+ gives them the flexibility to learn wherever and whenever best suits their needs and their busy work schedule. Any student on the go can listen to an eTextbook while cooking, cleaning, driving or while tackling whatever task happens to be in front of them.  

Lastly, be sure to take full advantage of our grade-technology too. It’s a familiar feature for your class and a time-saver for you. So you can focus on additional priorities. 

Go ahead. Be the best instructor you can be. Learn more about eTextbooks and Pearson+ today. 

*Webinar: https://www.pearson.com/us/about/news-events/events/2021/12/digital-reading-in-the-modern-world.html

** Available in most titles

For instructors and students alike, the path to success has become far more challenging. Students are arriving with different life and learning priorities, and varying levels of preparation. Everyone’s working harder, in the face of greater obstacles and deeper uncertainty. Instructors and students both need more effective support, in an era where resources are scarce. Courseware has always been a key resource, but today it needs to deliver more than ever. This makes your courseware decisions even more crucial. 

Great courseware doesn’t just happen: everything about it is intentional. In this blog post, we’ll discuss how we're delivering on three of Pearson’s core priorities for building courseware that helps instructors and learners thrive – outcomes, equity, and accessibility.  

Achieve the outcomes that matter

The most important outcomes are those that learners and instructors want, to help them realize the lives they imagine. Our outcome-based design processes help us understand and identify those upfront, as a “north star” to keep all of us aligned and on track. 

When we say “all of us,” we’re talking about a wide array of world-class, cross-disciplinary experts all working together, including: 

• Learning scientists who ensure our products reflect the latest, best evidence on what helps students learn, helps instructors teach, helps people effectively use technology, and helps promote career progress 
• User experience and content professionals who build and evolve engaging and personalized digital learning platforms, maximize relevance, and present material in powerfully compelling ways
• Assessment experts who embed opportunities for continual student progress assessment, and identify opportunities to improve our products
• 6,000+ trusted authors who bring their unique voices and cutting-edge knowledge -- so students never forget they’re learning from other remarkable human beings.

All this expertise translates into real effectiveness and strong outcomes. Take, for example, the experience of The University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), which serves 305,000 online students worldwide, many non-traditional or not fully prepared for college-level work.

Responding to a goal of reducing developmental prerequisites in college-level math and statistics, UMGC faculty assessed Pearson’s MyLab^® and an OER alternative through a 2.5-year pilot encompassing 12 instructors and 6,500 students. Based on the pilot’s remarkable results, UMGC has rolled out MyLab widely. That’s translated into dramatic improvements: from 60% to 80% student success in statistics and from 50% to 80% in algebra compared with OER.

Faculty evaluations have improved, too. Freed from grading, instructors had more time to guide individual students, and they also had richer data to tailor courses around their needs. 

UMGC’s experience is just one example of how Pearson’s outcome-based design is rooted in superior learning science is helping real learners. Outcomes like these thrill us – they’re why we do what we do. 

Extend great learning to everyone

At Pearson, the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion” aren’t cliches or trendy buzzwords. They’re a way of life deeply grounded in beliefs we’ve held for generations: Every individual can benefit from learning, and learning is a powerful force for positive change. Everyone should be welcomed into learning. Everyone should have a fair opportunity to learn, and learning should work for all students.

What matters more than our beliefs is what we do about them. We’ve built, and we enforce, comprehensive policies for making sure we authentically, inclusively, and respectfully represent people of all kinds. We are committed to minimizing bias. Our content celebrates diverse identities and lived experiences (see some complimentary examples here). We draw on many best practices and frameworks to provide high-quality inclusive content. We offer practical ways to report and dialogue about potential bias in our products.We do all of this so that our products are more inclusive, more relevant, and more accurate. Our DE&I approach to content development results in better products that center learners and increase student engagement.

Finally, we understand that effectively embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work is a journey. We honor and promote DE&I internally, to ensure that our offerings are created by teams who reflect those we serve. We’re proud to have earned the Human Rights Campaign’s “Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality” award, inclusion in Bloomberg’s Gender Equality Index, and a top grade in the Disability Equality Index, the most comprehensive benchmark for disability inclusion.

By doing all this, we’re serving learners’ demands. Our 2021 Global Learner Survey found that 80% of learners were trying to educate themselves about issues related to social justice, diversity or gender equality, rising to 84% among millennials and 85% among Gen Z.

Ensure accessibility to meet everyone’s potential

For too long, people were excluded from full access to education based on disabilities that were irrelevant to their potential. We’re determined to overcome that, one individual at a time. Our commitment is woven into our learning materials, development processes, innovation efforts, employee culture, and partnerships.

More specifically: We follow Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 guidelines and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act for products copyrighted 2022 or later. We’ve established comprehensive accessibility standards for creating products that are perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. We’ve built a roadmap for addressing accessibility issues in our existing MyLab and Mastering courses, and we’re doing extensive audits to remove barriers elsewhere. Our teams participate in rigorous, ongoing accessibility training. As of this writing, we offer nearly 900 accessible eTextbooks, and we’re working with T-Base Communications to accelerate delivery of top-selling Pearson titles in braille and reflowed large print.

Finally, to make sure we truly understand what learners need, we work closely on an ongoing basis with key members of the disability and advocacy community, and with organizations such as W3C, DIAGRAM Center, DAISY Consortium, Benetech, and the National Federation of the Blind.

Get what your learners deserve

Delivering on these commitments to outcomes, equity, and accessibility requires extensive resources, skills, and commitment. Not all of the world’s courseware reflects these values. But we think today’s learners should expect no less – and neither should you.

Explore new ways to help your students succeed.

The Role of the Affective Domain and ‘Soft Skills’ in Collegiate Math

Although students are reaching college-level math classes sooner due to many of the recent acceleration projects, they often arrive without developing many of the student skills that would improve their chances for success. One way we can help our students to develop those skills is through the use of prompts and assignments that focus on the affective domain.

I like to use a series of prompts in my classes, because they are powerful and flexible. They can be used for writing assignments, discussion board prompts, or to start face-to-face classroom discussions. The in-person discussions can start with student volunteers sharing their responses, or they could use a think-pair-share format. They fit well in corequisite support classes, as well as the main credit bearing course. Finally, the instructor could devote as little as 5-10 minutes of class time to these prompts or use an entire class session.

I focus on topics that I feel are most beneficial to my students, helping them to be more successful in my class as well as becoming a better learner in general. I like to start with prompts related to developing a growth mindset, because I believe that helping students reset their mindset regarding mathematics is an important first step on the path to success. 

I then follow up with prompts related to time management. Our students are over committed, yet lack skills for scheduling, organizing, or prioritizing tasks. Many students struggle with procrastination as well. These prompts lead to discussion and the discovery of strategies to improve time management.

After growth mindset and time management, I like to add prompts for goal setting using S.M.A.R.T. goals, reflection, and other study skills. You can tailor your choice of subjects to the skills you feel are most important, or to build up skills that your students need the most help with.

Lastly, I have assembled a set of 30 prompts that are included in the new third edition of Interactive Statistics, including notes for using them in class. Please reach out to me if you have any questions on using affective domain prompts in your classes, or if you are looking for feedback on strategies that you are using to help your students. 

Try a prompt in your class with one of these samples.

Have you noticed students coming to class underprepared or unable to demonstrate proficiency in reading, writing, or mathematics at the college level? Over 60% of students who attend either a two-year or four-year university enroll in at least one remedial course to better prepare for their major courses.¹

Unfortunately, many of the academically underprepared are economically disadvantaged or come from marginalized or minority groups. For example, in California, over 90% of economically disadvantaged students require remediation in English language learning.²

The impact of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic may have further heightened the struggles of underprepared students. With the shift to online learning, teaching quality varied substantially and transitions to remote learning were inconsistent. This enhanced the inequality for students who may not have access to the internet or a computer or don’t have the parental support they need.³

Institutions across the country are looking for new ways to help learners succeed. How could your institution and instructors leverage education technology to improve access and utilization to support these underprepared students?

Filling the gaps

Learning gaps should be identified prior to enrollment or the start of a course to ensure students are as successful as possible. Technology can help identify these gaps.

For example, Pearson Gap Finder assesses student knowledge and skills on prerequisite topics prior to enrolling in A&P courses. Students take an online diagnostic assessment and, based on the results, complete online learning modules focused on identified deficiencies so they’re more prepared for the rigorous A&P curriculum.

Remediation

Once learning gaps are identified, you can provide the remediation students need to be successful. Your institution likely has its own remediation courses that are prerequisites before entering into major courses. Research has found that many of these courses are unspecific, increase costs, and extend the time required to graduate, all of which can lead to increased drop outs.

Using online instruction can compress these courses, allowing students to only receive remediation on the topics they need while co-enrolling with their major course. Plus this specification of courses increases affordability and access¹ — helping you reach more students and meet your institutional goals of equity and inclusion.

Leveraging technology for ongoing support

There are many benefits to online instruction that level the playing field for many different social and demographic groups.

• It allows for both asynchronous and synchronous instructional models. Asynchronous instruction (pre-recorded video, digital materials, etc.) provides for slowed and/or repeated delivery of instruction, making it ideal for English language learners.
• Students can study anywhere at any time, which is great for students who are working while earning their degree.
• Online tutoring provides the flexibility students need while still providing quality instruction.

Smarthinking is an online tutoring service available for core subjects, including math, science, business, health sciences, reading, and writing. Assistance can be provided asynchronously and synchronously 24/7 by subject matter experts with graduate degrees. The writing portion of the program allows students to submit essays or similar writing pieces and receive personalized assistance.

Watch my recorded webinar to learn more about supporting underprepared students

Now more than ever schools are turning to online learning, so why not utilize online learning platforms to help your program with accreditation?

NACEP accreditation recognizes programs that have consistently met or exceeded rigorous, peer-reviewed standards in six areas: Partnership, Curriculum, Faculty, Students, Assessment, and Program Evaluation. These program standards create a quality framework to ensure that students are taking authentic college courses for transcripted college credit while in high school. Becoming a NACEP accredited program requires the submission of a variety of evidence documenting practice, policy, and procedures that meet or exceed NACEP’s Standards. Online learning platforms, like those offered by Pearson, can be an important ally in working towards accreditation.

Alignment via online learning platforms

An accredited program ensures that college courses offered by high school teachers are as rigorous as courses offered on the college campus. Coordinating online platforms between the college and the high school keeps assignments aligned and curriculum tight. By having identical content, the programs are meeting equivalency standards and comparison criteria (exams, homework, lab exercises, essays, etc.). Grading policies and rubrics can be the same within digital platforms to ensure continuity (number of tries, points deducted per wrong answer, extra credit, rubrics provided within the platforms, etc.) which helps programs demonstrate alignment with NACEP’s Assessment and Curriculum Standards.

Embedded professional development

Providing the depth and breadth of professional development needed to keep dual enrollment faculty up-to-date can be a challenge. Pearson offers weekly, discipline-specific, live and on-demand webinars for MyLab® and Mastering® that cover registration, assignment creation, testing, best practices, and other topics that help meet training criteria. Plus, you have access to training documents like how-to videos and planning toolkits. These resources can assist with documenting faculty professional development to meet NACEP’s Faculty Standards.

Downloadable assessment data

Programs need fast access to accurate data reports that highlight key course performance metrics including student pass/fail rates, content mastery, assignment completion, and formative assessment scores. With online platforms, course data can easily be downloaded and exported to Microsoft® Excel files for detailed analysis, allowing programs to make data-driven decisions and laying the foundation for program evaluation.

Viable alternative to in-person labs and hands-on experiences

Online platforms offer alternative learning experiences for students, especially during COVID-19 when the flexibility of online learning is essential and budgets are being stretched. Pearson’s Mastering platform is one example of a versatile tool, providing virtual laboratory exercises and dissections that engage students as if they were in the physical lab space. Struggling to offer content because the high school laboratory lacks necessary equipment? Mastering can help bridge the gap so that all students have equivalent laboratory experiences.

In addition to science offerings in Mastering, MyLab provides less expensive, virtual experiences for other “hands-on” Career and Technical Education fields, including automotive technology, culinary science, carpentry, and more. Creating real options for hands-on exercises provides your program maximum flexibility in instruction to help students continue to thrive despite COVID disruption. MyLab and Mastering present dual enrollment programs with an opportunity to document the ways they ensure equivalent content, even in the midst of a rapid shift to online coursework.

Pearson: your accreditation ally

Our MyLab and Mastering online learning platforms offer all these important benefits to help you document your activities in preparation for NACEP accreditation, while also improving the student and teacher experience. In addition, instructors have maximum control over their course, offering the flexibility to easily create courses to fit program needs. Courses can be shared with colleagues and adjuncts, copied for next semester, linked to an LMS, and more.

With the uncertainty of COVID-19 weighing heavily on instructors and programs, a solid back-up plan is needed for online and remote learning that has academics integrated with realistic experiences. By partnering with Pearson for your dual enrollment program, you can get:

• award-winning digital learning platforms that can be personalized for each student
• online homework and tutorial services that engage students and improve results
• preparation, intervention, and assessment diagnostics that gauge student readiness
• technology and services to provide in-depth data and analytics for your program
• college and career readiness tools that promote personal and social skills

Want to know more?

Watch this Pearson & NACEP on-demand webinar to learn more about how online platforms facilitate NACEP accreditation

Explore MyLab & Mastering features for educators.

Learn more about NACEP and accreditation.

In The Road to Dual Enrollment (Part I), I discussed a few of the challenges experienced by dual enrollment programs, including lengthy accreditation processes and access to professional development opportunities. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the obstacles instructors face after they become accredited, including standardization, access, and the affordability of materials. See how online learning resources can help tackle these problems.

Developing a collegiate-level course with minimal resources

After receiving my accreditation and transitioning from high school teacher to dual enrollment instructor for Lee College in Baytown, Texas, I was given a college textbook and a sample syllabus from my department mentor. Within around two weeks I was expected to develop the learning objectives, scope, depth, breadth, and rigor for an entire course, Biology I for Science Majors. The curriculum of this course needed to match the scope and rigor of a collegiate curriculum.

I spent days reading through an entire textbook that I hadn’t previously used in my Advanced Placement® courses and brainstorming appropriate labs for the equipment that I had. I didn’t have a single test, assignment, or lab manual to follow. While my mentor gave me some of his most successful labs, I needed to make sure they didn’t use materials my school didn’t have in stock or couldn’t afford. The scope of the task seemed almost insurmountable.

The impact of online resources

Finally, after making little progress, I reached out to the department chair and department secretary to see what online resources were available. I was provided with an educator account for the associated digital learning platform for my text and was overwhelmed with the quality and quantity of material available to me.

Digital access to platforms such as MyLab™ and Mastering™ are imperative to dual enrollment teachers who are often starting from scratch. The pre-built assignments, test banks, online laboratory simulations, and study modules would have taken years of collaboration and effort to develop. Delivering course materials with such a platform provides instantaneous access to collegiate-level resources.

They also let instructors create coordinator courses. In these instances, college professors can actually create and maintain a set of nested courses for dual enrollment classes at various high schools — pushing the same assignments, tests, and content from the college to the high schools.

Digital learning platforms address affordability

30% of respondents to our surveys at the national and regional NACEP conferences indicated that funding and affordability of materials is one of their greatest program pain points. An additional benefit to using online learning platforms is the affordability for the high school partners.

During my first years as an instructor for Lee College, I would drive 50 minutes each way after school to run student samples on equipment such as PCR machines or high-speed centrifuges because my high school couldn’t afford the $10,000 investment for this equipment. But if a high school has access to the laboratory simulations found in Mastering Biology, they can provide engaging, application-based experiences that can replace thousands of dollars of equipment.

Online learning platforms also provide additional affordability through eTexts. These platforms often contain eTexts so students can avoid the separate cost of purchasing a print textbook.

We’ll continue to explore additional challenges faced by dual enrollment programs in subsequent blogs. Read part I of this blog series and stay tuned for future posts centered around high school student readiness and preparation tools for college courses.

Ensuring that dual enrollment courses match the rigor and quality of traditional higher education courses requires thorough teacher training and accreditation, access to collegiate curricula, affordable student materials, and student readiness programs. It can be a challenge to coordinate all of these vital elements for every dual enrollment class, especially considering the myriad of dual enrollment course models available. Courses can be taken on the college campus, on the high school campus, remotely online, and even in hybrid versions comprised of online and face-to-face instructor interaction.

Overcoming obstacles to accreditation

The extensive initial accreditation process and training is an issue that I have personally experienced as the first dual enrollment science instructor for Lee College in Baytown, Texas. Previously, I had been teaching various levels of secondary science curricula from remedial to advanced placement (AP) when I received accreditation from Lee College to teach biology and related subjects at Hargrave High School in Huffman, Texas.

To receive this accreditation, I had to provide documentation of undergraduate and graduate school transcripts, proof of completion of my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and a CV outlining my research projects and publications.

The biology department developed an internal committee to review my paper credentials before beginning a three-step interview process. I had an initial sit down interview to discuss my experience before being asked to design and teach a sample lesson at the college campus. Finally, I had to undergo a skills assessment to test my laboratory acumen.

Facing professional development challenges

While necessary to ensure instructor quality, the accreditation process often creates a bottleneck effect for dual enrollment programs. Student interest far exceeds a school’s ability to vet instructors. A focus of many dual enrollment coordinators, policy makers, and school officials is simplifying the process of identifying and accrediting qualified instructors. This resonated with the attendees of the 2019 regional and national NACEP conferences who completed the survey at our Pearson booth. In fact, 41% of respondents indicated teacher professional development and accreditation was one of their largest program pain points.

The College Board Advanced Placement program offers week-long, intensive summer institutes on college campuses nationwide where teachers receive certification to teach AP courses. Can collegiate systems work in conjunction with governing bodies such as NACEP to hold similar dual enrollment institutes?

While the process of obtaining credentials can be cumbersome, it is equally difficult to maintain a schedule of professional development opportunities for dual enrollment instructors. Hargrave High School was more than a 50 minute drive from Lee College, prohibiting me from attending most on-site training. Travel to department meetings, team meetings, and faculty-wide technology and platform training could feasibly take an entire day, when in actuality high school teachers are only granted one or two 50 minute planning periods per school day.

The need for creative solutions

The most effective dual enrollment programs will solve these problems with outside-the-box solutions. Many collegiate partners are now offering evening, weekend, and summer professional development opportunities to accommodate the traditional high school teacher’s schedule. In addition, on-demand and webinar-based professional development can help bridge the distance gap between high school and college campuses.

The University of Texas OnRamps program employs a hybrid model wherein high school dual enrollment teachers attend an intensive summer institute followed by continual web-based support from a tenured faculty member. This allows the program to be administered throughout the entire state of Texas, helping to alleviate both the accreditation and professional development distance gap. Another unique solution is the development of dual enrollment satellite campuses such as the Lee College South Liberty Education Center. This center is located an hour away from the main campus of Lee College, allowing for a different subset of area high school students to convene to take dual enrollment classes from a qualified instructor, thus also helping to alleviate the burden of teacher accreditation and training.

These issues represent a small subset of the challenges faced by dual enrollment programs. In subsequent blogs, we’ll explore additional pain points we’ve discovered, share best practices, and present ways that Pearson is here to ensure equitable access to quality dual enrollment courses. Stay tuned for future posts addressing access to collegiate curricula, affordable student materials, and student readiness programs.

For more information on the OnRamps program, please visit visit https://onramps.utexas.edu/. For more information on the Lee College South Liberty Education Center, please visit http://www.lee.edu/south-liberty/.

As a former full-time community college math professor in the state of Florida, I had many dual-enrolled high school students in my classes over the years. For community college instructors, having dual enrollment students in the classroom doesn’t change much about how we teach or conduct class. Sure, I reminded my college-aged students to be mindful that there were minors in the room, and I frequently tweaked due dates at the beginning of the semester since many dual-enrolled students had to wait for the district to provide their course materials. But I had the luxury of teaching my courses using the same textbook regardless of whether I had dual-enrolled students on my roster or not.

Another advantage I had was that my department was an early adopter of MathXL and MyLab™ Math, so I felt comfortable not only creating courses and assignments in those programs, but also helping my students take advantage of the great features they contained. I didn’t realize how different the experience of teaching dual enrollment can be for high school teachers until 2018, when I joined Pearson on a new team whose goal was to make dual enrollment work better for all teachers.

Accessing dual enrollment materials

Most dual enrollment partnerships require that courses taught in a high school must use the same course materials as the equivalent college course. This means that high school dual enrollment teachers must not only get their hands on the textbook, but also gain access to any corequisite online component (such as MyLab or Mastering™).

Fortunately, Pearson has made these two tasks easy, thanks to an updated website designed with dual enrollment teachers in mind. On the Preview page, you will find a link to our Dual Enrollment Instructor Access Request Form, where you can request access to our digital platforms (which contain the eText) and also request a print textbook (if needed). Additionally, the Purchase page walks users through the options to purchase student materials, since dual enrollment can have various purchasing models not commonly found in higher education.

How-tos and support

Like myself, many college professors have been using MyLab and Mastering for years, but fewer high school teachers have experience with these platforms. Still, if the college is using MyLab Math in their precalculus courses, the high school teachers are typically expected to use MyLab Math in their dual enrollment precalculus courses as well. Pearson provides high school dual enrollment teachers with the resources they need to become comfortable using our digital products. Visit our Get Started page to learn how to register yourself and your students for MyLab or Mastering.

Once you are registered and are ready to learn more, the Training and Support page provides the opportunity to subscribe to our customer success journey emails that are loaded with helpful tips, or register for a webinar to take a deeper dive into using your MyLab or Mastering product. This page also explains how to get access to the Instructor Resource Center so you can download presentations, instructor manuals, test files, and more.

Lastly, this page offers assistance in case you need technical support. We have worked with our sales and technical support teams to better prepare them to tackle dual enrollment-related issues. We encourage you to bookmark our Dual Enrollment Customer Handbook, which contains much of the same information as our website, but in a handy PDF format.

Pearson is committed to providing solutions to the unique needs of dual enrollment teachers. See how we can help your program by reading through our Results and Success Stories.

Have questions?

When you are ready to learn more, your sales representative can answer questions regarding content, pricing, and delivery. If student materials will be purchased via high school purchase order, find your K–12 sales representative. If student materials will be purchased via any other method, find your higher ed sales representative.