The Student Guide to Using Connect McGraw Hill
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G
etting Started
Optimizing your Computer
McGraw Hill cares about your learning experience and we
want to make sure Connect and SmartBook will run smoothly
on your device.
After you’ve logged into Connect, make sure your computer
is optimized to run the program by visiting:
connect.mheducation.com/connect/troubleshoot.do
Trouble logging in?
Luckily, remembering your email and password doesn’t
count toward your grade. If you’re experiencing trouble
accessing Connect, ask yourself these questions:
■ Am I using the same email address I used when I
registered? If you forget which email you’re using, contact
our support team for help: www.mheducation.ca/sup-
port-contact
■ Did I forget my cryptic password? If so, click on the
Forgot Password link at your instructor’s Connect course
web address and follow the prompts to reset it
Once you regain access to Connect, you can update your
account info by navigating to your account at the top left
corner of the menu.
McGraw Hill Connect is our digital assign-
ment and assessment platform that helps
students (that’s you!) better connect with
your coursework and instructors, ultimately
setting you up for future success.
Through Connect, you’ll be able to manage
and submit assignments online and access
engaging course-specific resources.
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Navigating Connect
To Do
When you first log in to Connect, you will arrive at the To Do
page. This page provides you with a snapshot of upcoming
assignments for all of your Connect courses, with the most
urgent at the top of the list. Connect helps you organize your
study time so you can tackle the assignments that need
attention first.
The navigation on the left of this page is always available
through Connect:
■ My Account – see your McGraw Hill account details
■ To Do – see upcoming assignments
■ Calendar – view assignment due dates by day, week or
month
■ Classes – access all Connect courses you are enrolled in
■ Results – view status of assignments, progress and results
■ Insight – visual display of how you are progressing in your
course
■ Log out – log out of Connect
■ Contact Support - access the Connect online help
documentation
To access an individual course, click on the section name
underneath the Classes menu link.
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Course Section Home Page
The course section home page takes you into one specific
course. From this view, you can see all assignments for the
course and their due dates.
You’ll also see information about your instructor, view any
files he or she has uploaded, and be able to access your
course eBook if available.
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Media Bank
Within your course home page, you’ll see Media Bank on the
left-hand side. Here, you will find the Student Resources that
are available with your course, which may include additional
resources, cases, videos and other multimedia.
You’ll also have the option to order a loose-leaf print copy of
your textbook at an additional cost.
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Assignments
You will find a list of the assignments given to you by your
instructor on your Course Section Home Page.
Assignments that are not yet available will be indicated with
a lock icon. Any assignments with an arrow are available to
be completed. When you click on an assignment, the right
side of the screen displays the assignment details, including
start and end date, point value, number of attempts allowed
and more.
Active assignments are those that have been
assigned by your instructor. Assignments can be
inactive for a variety of reasons:
• The assignment is past due
• The assignment has a future start date
• You have used up all your available attempts
• If your instructor has set a time limit, it may have
run out
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Taking an Assignment
Once you’ve launched an assignment, there are several
features to help navigate your way through it. Use the Prev/
Next buttons to advance through the questions or use the
Question Map at the bottom of the screen to quickly jump to
a particular assignment question.
Do not use the back and forward buttons on your
web browser to navigate – you could lose some of
your work.
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Save & Exit vs. Submit Assignment
If you can’t finish your assignment in one sitting, use the
Save & Exit button. Your work is saved and will not count
as an attempt until you click the Submit Assignment button.
However, if your assignment is timed, using the Save & Exit
button will not pause the timer; you must finish the
assignment within the allotted time frame.
Once you are happy with your work, click the Submit
Assignment button to have your assignment graded.
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Calendar
The calendar oers an alternative view of assignments,
allowing you to plan your study schedule around due dates in
multiple Connect courses. You can view the calendar by day,
week, or month. Colour coding and assignment icons help
prioritize your work. The calendar view can also be filtered
by class to view assignments for a single course or all your
courses at once.
Results
Under the Results tab in the main menu, click on a course to
view all completed assignments for that class. Once you have
submitted an assignment, your available results will be shown
in this tab. Here, you can access details for each assignment
attempt by clicking the link below the assignment title.
NOTE: Scores/feedback will only be available after an
assignment is submitted and based on the instructor’s
assignment policies.
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Insight™
Connect Insight™ reports allow you to quickly assess your
progress within a course, with visual data providing at-a-
glance information about how you are performing. You can
easily switch between Connect courses to view your results
for that course, or filter by assignment type and date range
to customize your view.
How am I Progressing?
This view displays your completed assignments for an
overall look at how your scores stack up over the duration
of your course.
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How am I Doing?
This view oers a snapshot of all your assignments, across
all courses in a quadrant graph that compares scores vs. time
spent on assignment. Data can be filtered by time spent or
score to see how your study time in Connect impacts results.
Click on any assignment to see details on your exact
score and the time spent. Check out the “Do” sec-
tion, which gives you suggestions on improving your
performance.
The Student Guide to Using Connect McGraw Hill
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• SmartBook will show two
eBook options under course
materials.
• SmartBook 2.0 will have one
eBook option under course
materials.
Both versions allow you to download
the ReadAnywhere mobile app to
read offline.
Click "Learn More" below each image
to explore your version of SmartBook.
W
hich Version of
SmartBook do I have?
SmartBook SmartBook 2.0
Learn More Learn More
There are two versions of SmartBook
depending on the Connect product
your instructor has chosen to use in this
course.
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Let’s take a closer look
at SmartBook
To access SmartBook, login to Connect and proceed to your
course. Next, click on the LearnSmart adaptive assignment
within your Connect course’s homepage. A sidebar will
load on the right-hand side of your screen with details of the
LearnSmart assignment. Click Continue to load SmartBook
and start your assignment.
When SmartBook loads, you will be directed to the section
that has been assigned by your instructor.
Wondering what the dierence is between
LearnSmart and SmartBook? Think of it like this:
LearnSmart is the brains of SmartBook – the adaptive
learning technology that makes your experience in
SmartBook unique to your learning needs.
SMARTBOOK is a digital copy of your
course textbook, except smarter. Using
adaptive learning technology, SmartBook
is able to tailor the content of the text to
suit your specific learning needs. For every
minute you study, it helps make that minute
the most high impact and productive sixty
seconds as possible. Let’s be honest:
when studying, we don’t have time to waste!
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Table of Contents
SmartBook’s table of contents is exactly what it sounds like
— the table of contents for the reading material. You can click
on each chapter or unit to easily find what you need to study
for class. After selecting the correct chapter, you will be taken
to the content to read.
Read
In the Read Stage, you will be brought to the actual content
you are required to read for class. When the content opens,
the chapter outline will open automatically and the SmartBook
version of the textbook will be on the right. To close the table
of contents, click the icon in the top left corner. This will open
a full-page view of SmartBook’s adaptive reading experience,
allowing you to dive right into the content.
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Text Highlighting in the Read Phase
During the Read Stage, SmartBook creates a dynamic
reading experience where the most important learning
objectives for the chapter have already been highlighted in
yellow. As you progress through the Read & Practice stages
of SmartBook, the highlights will adapt to you. As you learn
and master the material, the highlights will turn green. The
areas that you need to spend more time will remain yellow
and the material that is less relevant at that time will be
dimmed. These highlights help you to prioritize your study
time to ensure you’re being super-ecient.
Let’s take a closer look at how this happens
While reading for the first time in SmartBook, you will
notice text highlighted in yellow. This is the most important
information that you should be studying. Additionally,
SmartBook identifies the less relevant content by dimming
the text. The dimmed text will help you quickly and
eciently prioritize the most important content.
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Lastly, as you progress through the Read and Practice
Stages, SmartBook will adapt the reading experience to
reflect the content you have mastered and where you need
to spend more time. Once you have mastered chapter learning
objectives, SmartBook will adapt and highlight the mastered
content in green.
If you don’t like the highlighting, you can always turn it o by
clicking the icon in the bottom right corner of your screen.
REMEMBER – the adaptive highlighting is designed to
adapt to your learning needs and helps to ensure every
minute you spend studying is super-ecient.
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Practice Stage
Based on what you read in the Read Stage, SmartBook
will present questions that will help you master the content
and identify areas where you are struggling. This helps to
transform what you’ve read from short-term memory to
long-term memory.
Let’s take a closer look at how this happens
While you’re reading, SmartBook will automatically determine
the best time to start practicing the content you’ve read. In
the bottom left corner, the Practice button will begin flashing
blue, letting you know you it’s time to practice the material
you are reading. Just click the flashing blue icon to enter the
Practice Stage.
After you click the flashing blue icon, the Practice Stage will
open and SmartBook will present your first practice question.
You’ll notice that SmartBook will ask you how confident you
are in your answers.
It’s extremely important that you answer all parts of these
questions honestly. This helps SmartBook’s algorithm learn
what you know, what you don’t know and how confident
you are in your answers. All of these factors and more help
SmartBook tailor the learning experience to your unique
needs – helping you achieve better results in less time.
The Student Guide to Using Connect McGraw Hill
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SmartBook will continue to ask you questions until you’ve
demonstrated mastery of the learning objective. However, if
SmartBook learns from your answers that you’re struggling
with certain topics, you will be prompted to jump back into
the Read Stage to learn more by the flashing blue Read icon
in the bottom left corner.
REMEMBER: SmartBook will adapt the reading experience
based on your mastery of the learning objectives.
If at any point you need help deciding what to do next,
click the coach icon in the bottom right corner to get helpful
advice.
Assignments
You can access any assignments your instructor has created
on the assignments tab on the Table of Contents page. On
this page, you can see any assignments you are working on
or those that have been completed.
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Recharge
For some courses, it is possible to recharge certain chapters
and assignments. The objective of this stage in SmartBook is
long-term retention. The data that SmartBook has collected
about you helps it determine what you are likely to forget.
The recharge stage lets you practice areas that you’ve
struggled with, helping you to further prioritize your study
sessions.
To access the Recharge Stage, you will need to click on a
completed chapter from the table of contents; you may be
told the content is not available for recharge. Alternatively,
you may be informed that recharge is available and asked if
you wish to open it.
Certain assignments will be available for recharge once the
due date for your assignment has passed or you achieve a
score of 100%. If you click on the original assignment from
the course home page in Connect, you will be redirected to
SmartBook and either be told there is nothing to recharge,
or be taken directly to the recharge stage.
REMEMBER: Recharging assignments won’t change your
original grade, but can help you study for future tests.
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Reports
In the Reports section of SmartBook, there are six dierent
reports to help you determine how you’re performing.
1. Current Learning Status: View how much you have left to
learn and what you need to review so that you don’t forget key
content.
2. Topic Scores: View the modules and sections you struggled
with the most. This will allow you to quickly identify areas you
should focus on before a big exam.
3. Missed Questions: See frequently missed questions so you
can practice in areas where you’ve struggled.
4. Most Challenging Learning Objectives: View the learning
objectives that are the hardest for you.
5. Self-Assessment: View how aware you were of whether or
not you knew the answers. This report will help you study more
eciently.
6. Tree of Knowledge: Watch your tree grow as you learn.
Keeping tabs on your performance can help you utilize
SmartBook more eciently when you’re studying. Take a
look through the dierent sections to see how you’re doing
and find areas you might need to focus on in the future.
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Let’s take a closer look
at SmartBook 2.0
To access SmartBook, login to Connect and proceed to your
course. Next, click on the SmartBook adaptive assignment
within your Connect course’s homepage. A sidebar will load
on the right-hand side of your screen with details of the
SmartBook assignment. Click Begin to load SmartBook and
start your assignment.
When SmartBook loads, you will be prompted to either
Start with Reading or Start with Questions - it’s up to you,
depending on how familiar you are with the material
assigned.
SMARTBOOK is a digital copy of your
course textbook, except smarter. Using
adaptive learning technology, SmartBook
is able to tailor the content of the text to
suit your specific learning needs. For every
minute you study, it helps make that minute
the most high impact and productive sixty
seconds as possible. Let’s be honest:
when studying, we don’t have time to waste!
The Student Guide to Using Connect McGraw Hill
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Reading in SmartBook 2.0
If you select Start With Reading, you will be taken directly
to the section of the text that your instructor has assigned.
In the Reading Stage, SmartBook creates a dynamic reading
experience where the most important concepts for the
chapter have already been highlighted for you in yellow.
These highlights help you prioritize your study time to ensure
you’re being super-ecient.
You can navigate through the highlighted concepts using the
arrows in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Navigate
through the sections of your SmartBook with the arrows
directly below the Concepts arrows.
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Completing Questions in
SmartBook 2.0
Based on what you read in the Reading Stage, SmartBook
will present questions that will help you master the content
and identify areas where you are struggling. This helps to
transform what you’ve read from short-term memory to long-
term memory.
Let’s take a closer look at how this happens
While you’re reading, you can click on the To Questions
button at any time to start working through questions and
practice the content you’ve read.
After you click To Questions, the Question Stage will open
and SmartBook will present your first practice question. You’ll
notice that SmartBook asks you how confident you are in
your answer.
It’s extremely important that you answer all parts of these
questions honestly. This helps SmartBook’s algorithm learn
what you know, what you don’t know and how confident
you are in your answers. All of these factors and more help
SmartBook tailor the learning experience to your unique
needs – helping you achieve better results in less time.
McGraw Hill The Student Guide to Using Connect
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SmartBook will continue to ask you questions until
you’ve demonstrated mastery of each concept within the
assignment. However, if SmartBook learns from your answers
that you’re struggling with certain topics, it will prompt
you to jump back into the Reading Stage to learn more by
highlighting the Concept Resources icon in the top right
corner.
In order to proceed with questions, you must return to the
Reading Stage by clicking on the icon. SmartBook will take
you directly to the highlighted concept so you can review the
material. Once you’ve reviewed, click Back to Questions to
return.
Progress Bar
As you work through the Question Stage, the Progress bar
breaks down your assignment progress into three categories:
concepts not started, concepts in progress and concepts
completed. You’ll need to successfully answer at least two
questions related to a concept before that concept is marked
complete in the Progress bar.
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Recharge
SmartBook allows you to recharge certain chapters and
assignments to help with long-term retention of concepts.
The data that SmartBook has collected about you helps it
determine what you are likely to forget, and allows it to create
a personalized review experience. The recharge stage lets
you practice areas that you’ve struggled with, helping you to
further prioritize your study sessions.
To access the Recharge Stage, you will need to click on a
completed assignment marked with “Recharge” from your
course home page. You will be redirected to SmartBook and
can begin recharging your knowledge.
REMEMBER: Recharging assignments won’t change your
original grade, but can help you study for future tests.
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Reports
To see reports in SmartBook, visit your course home page and
click on See Report beside any completed assignment. From
the following screen, you can select an individual assignment
and which attempt you’d like to view.
This will display a dashboard of your results for the assignment,
including the time spent, how confident you were in your
answers, and which concepts were most challenging for you.
Learn More
You can find great support materials
like tutorial videos and content in our
knowledge base on our support site:
http://www.connectstudentsuccess.com
Technical Support
If you need technical support with Con-
nect or have some questions, you can
also contact our Customer Experience
Team on our support site:
www.mheducation.ca/support-contact
Talk to Us
Give us a call:
1-800-565-5758
Need More Help?
We all need more help sometimes.
Don’t contact your instructor for technical help –
that’s what our Customer Experience Team is for!
