Getting Started in MT 251-ES Statistics Hello, and welcome to MT 251-ES Statistics for estart. I am Professor LaVoice, your instructor for this course. I have prepared this document to explain the procedure for registering and enrolling in the course, which is located on the Pearson MyLab/Mastering web site (or MyLab, for short). MyStatLab is the tool provided by the MyLab site for completing your homework assignments and taking tests. This document also gives a description of how the course materials are organized and gives tips on studying, completing homework, and submitting tests. If at any time you have a question concerning enrollment or completing your course work, please do not hesitate to contact me at vlavoice@ccsnh.edu. Contents Preparing to Participate 1 Understanding the Course Layout 4 Take a Tour: How to Enter Answers Using MyStatLab 5 Studying for Homework and Tests 5 Things to Know About Homework 6 Getting Help 7 Video Lectures and Practice Tests 9 Taking a Test 10 Things To Remember About Taking an Online Course 12 Preparing to Participate 1. Obtain an access code for MyStatLab. You have several alternatives for obtaining an access code: Purchase a new copy of Elementary Statistics, 11th ed. Technology Update, (Triola; Pearson/Addison- Wesley, 2010, ISBN: 0-321-69450-3) at the NHTI Book Store; the MyStatLab access code is contained in the Student Access Kit inserted inside the front cover. NOTE: A hardcover textbook is optional for this course because the textbook is available online in both PDF and HTML formats. However, a hardcover textbook is recommended because you can use it as a reference while taking tests. Purchase a Student Access Kit from the NHTI Book Store. Purchase or rent a (used) textbook and a Student Access Kit from an online textbook vendor (such as Amazon.com or chegg.com). Purchase an access code at the same time that you register with MyStatLab. If you are waiting for financial aid or you are unsure whether you will remain enrolled in Statistics past the Drop Date (February 4), you can obtain temporary access to the MyStatLab site for 17 days, free of charge. At the end of the 17 days, you must purchase an access code to continue working on assignments. See step 2d) on page 3 for details.
2. Register with MyStatLab and enroll in the course. a) Go to http://pearsonmylabandmastering.com. Under Register, click Student. b) Enter course ID lavoice60786. You should see the following screen: c) If you have a Pearson account, sign in. You should see a link to the course. If you do not have a Pearson account, click Create and complete the account profile information. NOTE: When you create your account profile, you will be asked to give an e-mail address. It is highly recommended that you use your NHTI Student E-mail address in your profile. E-mail messages sent to your instructor from an account other than a valid NHTI Student E-mail account might be quarantined, which can delay delivery of the message. It is also VERY important that you type your e-mail address correctly when entering it into your profile. If your e-mail address is not correct, you will not receive e-mails that are addressed to the entire class. The following is an example of an NHTI Student E-mail address (note the word students following the @ sign): JJones123@students.ccsnh.edu
d) Enter or obtain an access code. 3. Click the course link to open the course. You should see a navigation panel on the left and the Course Home page with Announcements on the right. The navigation panel is described in detail in Understanding the Course Layout on page 4. 4. Run the Browser Check. In the Welcome to MyStatLab! announcement, click the Browser Check link. The Browser Check verifies that you have the correct versions of all browser plug-ins needed to use MyStatLab features (including videos, animated lessons, homework assignments, and the Study Plan). Students using an ipad or Mac or other Apple device should contact the instructor for important set-up information. 5. Print the Syllabus for the course, and view the Course Schedule. Click the Syllabus button. Open and print the Syllabus for the course. Place the Course Schedule (on page 4 in the Syllabus) in a conspicuous place next to your computer so that you will avoid missing any due dates. You can also view availability and due dates for homework assignments and tests by viewing the calendar on the Course Home page. The My Results and My Progress areas on the Course Home page will become populated once you start working on and completing assignments. 6. Send me an e-mail message from within the MyLab web site. The purpose for this e-mail message is to allow both student and instructor to be confident that communicating via e-mail is working properly within the MyLab environment. You should receive a prompt reply from me to all your e-mail messages. If you do not hear back from me within 24 hours, please re-send the message. 7. Introduce yourself in the Introductions topic on the Discussions page. The MyLab course contains a Discussions area where students can connect with one another on any relevant topic in Statistics. I would like you to introduce yourself here, but otherwise your use of this feature is completely optional. Your participation in these discussions may be taken into consideration when your overall score in the course is on the boundary between two grades. Participation consists of submitting topics for discussion and asking questions as well as answering questions posed by the instructor or fellow students. To submit a topic for discussion, send the topic suggestion to your instructor at vlavoice@ccsnh.edu. Students are not permitted to start new topics, but may post responses to topics that have been posted by the instructor.
Understanding the Course Layout To find and navigate to course materials and services, use the following buttons: This area is used primarily for quick access to e-mail and to the e-book in HTML format (which is accessible by screen reader software). Announcements are displayed on the Course Home page whenever you log into the course, but you can also view them any time by clicking this button. Click this button to get a copy of the Syllabus or this Getting Started document. Click this button to view the e-book (in PDF) and a Student Solutions Manual that shows how to solve sample homework problems. (See also Selected Solutions, below.) Click this button to gain access to PowerPoint lectures prepared by your instructor. These lectures often include calculator instructions not provided in the slides that are accessible through the Multimedia Library (see below). Click this button to access the homework assignments on the Homework page. Each homework assignment covers a single section. All homework assignments for a given chapter will appear on the start date and will remain accessible until midnight on the due date. (See page 4 in the Syllabus for homework start and due dates.) Past-due assignments are listed, but are no longer accessible. Click this button to access the graded chapter tests (which are listed at the top of the page) and the final exam. Each test is accessible for a four-day period. (See the Syllabus for test start and due dates.) You can also take one or two non-graded Sample Tests (listed below the graded chapters tests) if you want to practice before taking the graded test. These handouts demonstrate how to use the TI-83 or TI-84 graphing calculator to reduce the time and effort needed to solve homework problems. This page provides links to documents that show calculator-based solutions to selected homework problems. (OPTIONAL) Use the Study Plan to get extra practice before doing graded homework or taking a test. Your work on the Study Plan will show in the Gradebook but does not affect your overall score. You can view your current overall score in this course at any time. You should frequently monitor your score and promptly report any discrepancies to me. In this area, you will find some excellent, professionally-done animated flowcharts and applets designed to help you understand statistics by hands-on experimentation. The Triola Statistics Series Review Card provides a summary of the important formulas and tables we use in this course. Some of these materials are also searchable through the Multimedia Library (see below). As a user of the Triola Elementary Statistics textbook, you are entitled to use the StatCrunch data analysis tool free of charge. StatCrunch has a feature that allows you to load data from any web site and then analyze the data using statistical methods. Click this button to search MyLab for animated lessons, chapter test preparation videos, video lectures, and PowerPoint slides (created by the publisher). You can narrow your search by chapter or by section, and by media type (or search for all media types at once). [Videos not recommended over dial-up (56K) connection.] Pearson Tutor Services are available for an extra charge. You get one free session on which to base your decision whether to purchase additional services. For more information, click this button and then click Pearson Tutor Services. Connect with other students in this course by starting or participating in one or more discussions on a topic in Statistics.
Take a Tour: How to Enter Answers Using MyStatLab MyStatLab is the tool you ll use to do your homework and take tests in this course. If you have no experience using MyStatLab (or MyMathLab, which is virtually the same), I highly recommend that you take the tour How to Enter Answers. A link to this tour is available in the Welcome to MyStatLab! announcement on the Course Home page. Studying for Homework and Tests If you ve never taken an online course before, perhaps you are wondering how to proceed. The following is a suggested method for studying the course materials to get ready for homework assignments and tests. Start by expanding the Chapter Contents in the panel on the left, and then click on the section you want to work on. You will see a page like the following, which gives you access to a video presentation, the appropriate section in the online textbook, and practice problems in the Study Plan. Start with either the video or the textbook (or both, if you want to reinforce the material). You should also look at the PowerPoint slides posted on the Lectures page for examples that show the use of the calculator to save time and effort on certain homework problems. (These lectures are not accessible through the Multimedia Library, only from the Lectures page.) When you open to a particular section in the online textbook, you will see a page like the following:
Some nice features of the online textbook include the following: The toolbar at the top of the window contains a highlighter and bookmarking tool to help you rapidly find and recall important information. A video is available anywhere you see the camera icon. Click the icon to try a sample problem like the one shown in the example. The icon gives access to videos, animations, and practice exercises on the Top 20 Topics in Statistics. The Study Plan allows you to work on sample problems before you try working on homework. The Study Plan is also useful after you have worked on a homework assignment by showing you which concepts you need to practice, and allowing you to focus on these. Before you take a test for credit, you can use the Study Plan to gain access to sample tests. Things to Know About Homework Here are some important things to be aware of concerning homework in this course. After you click the Homework button, if you do not see homework assignments you want to work on, it is likely that the Available date for these assignments has not yet been reached. Consult the Course Home page or the schedule on page 4 of the Syllabus to determine when homework assignments for a given chapter will become available for you to work on. The Due date for the homework assignments is the same as the due date for the corresponding test. For shorter assignments, the list of homework questions might not appear if the Homework page is not scrolled all the way to the top. Consider making a notebook from the homework assignments to use as a reference when taking a test. You can print an entire assignment or just the question you are working on. (Be sure to read the next item on the dynamic nature of MyStatLab.)
Due to the dynamic nature of MyStatLab, if you log out before completing a homework assignment, when you log back in the numbers used in any unanswered questions will have changed. For example, suppose a question asks you to find the binomial probability when n = 10, p = 0.3, and x = 2. If you log out and log back in again, this question will still concern binomial probability, but now the question might concern n = 10, p = 0.47, and x = 5. If you print the assignment to work out the answers to questions on paper first, be sure to enter your answers before you log out. If you did not answer all the questions, you will need to reprint the assignment to see the latest version of the unanswered questions. MyStatLab gives you three tries to answer a question. If you fail to answer correctly in three tries, the player shows you the correct answer (and your incorrect answer). You can try again by pressing the button. There is no limit to the number of times you can ask for a similar exercise to correctly answer a homework question (prior to the due date for the assignment). If you are willing and have the time, you should be able to get a perfect score on every homework assignment (which will boost your final average in the course). Once the due date for a homework assignment is past, you can review your answers to questions but you cannot revise or provide answers to any questions in that assignment. For multiple-part questions, if you decide not to complete all parts of a question you will be given partial credit for the parts that are correctly answered. Nearly all the homework assignments have in excess of 10 questions. Watch for the doublearrow symbol to the right of the question numbers (as shown below), indicating that there are more questions to answer. Getting Help You have several options, within and outside of MyLab, to get help with the course material. Each of these options is described below. Get help within MyLab Lectures A PowerPoint lecture for each section that is covered in the course has been prepared by your instructor and posted on the Lectures page. When applicable, the lectures demonstrate how to use the calculator to solve homework problems in the corresponding section. NOTE: These slides are not searchable through the Multimedia Library. Calculator Tips These documents give instructions on how to use the calculator to solve various types of problems by topic. Selected Solutions These documents give instructions on how to use the calculator to solve specific homework problems. NOTE: The instructor may post additional solutions as the course progresses, so check this page frequently. Student Solutions Manual The first item under Chapter Contents is a link to the Student Solutions Manual. This PDF document is organized by chapter, and provides solutions to the problems found at the end of each section in the textbook.
To find help on the homework problem you are currently trying to solve, observe the textbook exercise number in the upper right corner of the MyStatLab screen. For example, the textbook exercise number for the problem shown below is 3.3.15. Look up Section 3-3 in the Student Solutions Manual, then find problem #15 to see the solution to a similar problem. NOTE: In many cases, there are simpler methods available on the TI-83/84 calculator than those shown in the Student Solutions Manual. Check the Calculator Tips and Selected Solutions areas for instructions on using the calculator to solve homework problems. Online help in MyStatLab To get help while doing your homework, click on one of the following: Some questions have an Instructor Tip (which automatically displays when you first open the question). If you close the Instructor Tip window, you can reopen it by clicking this button. Displays step-by-step tutorial instructions. You might be asked to provide intermediate answers during the tutorial phase. As long as the remain in tutorial mode. You can click Displays the pertinent section of the textbook (in PDF). button is displayed, you at any time to exit tutorial mode. Displays a QuickTime video in which a professional math instructor demonstrates how to solve the problem (not recommended unless you have a high bandwidth connection). Opens an e-mail window in which you can type a question which will accompany a link to the exact question you re working on. This is the best way to ask me for help on a homework question. If you do not receive a response within 24 hours, contact me via e-mail. Prints a single question or all of the questions in the homework assignment. Pearson Tutor Center The Pearson Tutor Center provides support for Addison-Wesley and Prentice Hall mathematics and statistics content and is staffed by college-level mathematics instructors who can help you with what you're learning. As a MyStatLab student, you can register for the Pearson Tutor Center after one free trial session using either of the following methods: Visit the Tutor Center's registration page to sign up for tutoring. When asked for a registration number, simply provide your MyStatLab course ID or access code. Call 1-800-877-3016 (5:00 PM - 12:00 AM EST, Sun-Thurs) NOTE: There is a fee for using the Pearson Tutor Center after the initial trial session.
Get help outside of MyLab The following tutoring options are available to you free of charge: Smarthinking Online Tutoring This service is available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can obtain help by chatting with a tutor or by e-mail. Access to Smarthinking is provided through the NHTI Blackboard website: 1) Login to Blackboard (not MyLab). 2) Click the link for Smarthinking in the panel on the left side of the window. To obtain support and instructions for SMARTHINKING use, use this link: http://www.smarthinking.com/static/customersupport/usersguidefaq/ Math Lab at the Learning Center in the NHTI Library (contact Ruth Heath, Director) The Math Lab is open weekdays from 9:00 am to 7:30 pm (except Fridays, open until 3:00 pm). You can arrange for one-on-one peer tutoring, or drop in for tutoring during regular hours. Video Lectures and Practice Tests To help you prepare for homework and tests, MyLab offers study aids in the form of section videos and sample chapter tests. There is also a practice test at the end of each chapter in the hardcover textbook (and e-book). Section Videos You can easily find these videos using the Multimedia Library search feature. Each section has several example videos which guides you through sample problems in that section. To access these videos: 1. Click the button. 2. Select a chapter (and, if desired, a section) and check Videos. 3. Click to display links to the specified videos. In the following illustration, all videos for Section 4.2 will be listed.
Sample Tests If you want to practice before taking a test click or click, then click Sample Tests (as shown). These sample tests will show up in the Gradebook but are not included in your overall score. Taking a Test IMPORTANT: There is no time limit for completing a test after you start, and you can go back to previous questions to change your answers. Once you submit the test, however, you may review but cannot change your answers. 1. Click on: You will see the Homework and Tests: Quizzes & Tests window with a link to the test (under Assignment). 2. Click the link for the assigned test. When you are ready to start the test, click. 3. Enter answers in the same manner as when doing homework. NOTE: You can go back to previously answered questions and change the answer by highlighting your answer and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. Then enter your new answer.
4. When you are satisfied with your answers, click. You will see the Test Overview window, showing which questions are correct, incorrect, or partially correct. 5. To review your answer and see the correct answer for any question, click on the link for that question. The MyStatLab Review window appears, displaying the correct answer to the question. To see the answer you submitted, put your cursor over the red triangle in the corner of the answer area, as shown in the following illustration. 6. To see your score on any test or homework assignment, click. NOTE: MyStatLab is very picky about the accuracy and form with which you respond to test questions. I review your responses to every test (usually the day after the test was due) to look for opportunities to award extra credit for partially-correct responses that MyStatLab doesn t recognize as being partially correct. For example, if the correct response to a question is 33.1 and you responded 33.05, MyStatLab marks the response as incorrect. However, I will give you partial credit because your response is correct but not rounded correctly.
Things To Remember About Taking an Online Course While online courses are convenient, they often require you to put in more time and effort on homework assignments and tests. As an online student, you get to use the book and are not restricted to class hours while taking tests; traditional students do not enjoy these advantages. You are required to be independent. No one is going to remind you to hand in your homework on time or to complete the tests by the due date. You are responsible for keeping up with the work, asking questions when you need help, and completing all work according to the course calendar. Being independent also means doing the assignments on your own, not with your genius mathematician brother or sister sitting next to you. As stated in the Student Handbook, NHTI policy on academic honesty penalizes not only the cheating student but those that assist the student to cheat. Do not put yourself or your friends at risk do your own work. You are required to schedule your own class time. The MyLab program keeps track of how long each student spends on PowerPoint lectures, videos, and exercises in the Study Plan in addition to time spent on homework assignments and tests. If a student claims that this subject is too hard without having put forth adequate effort, I am less apt to be sympathetic. You should frequently monitor your grade in the course. Click and then click. Sometimes your answer to a homework or test question is correct, but was not entered in the format that MyStatLab expects. If you think such a discrepancy exists, you should contact me as soon as possible so that I can give you credit when warranted. If you invest the time and work hard, you will be more apt to achieve an A, the grade I hope to see every student earn by the end of the session. Good Luck and Enjoy the Class!!!