Mastering Astronomy Tour Video Transcript

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

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

This online homework, tutorial and assessment tool is specifically designed to improve results by engaging students before, during and after class with powerful content. Instructors are able to assign educationally effective content and encourage critical thinking with in-class resources such as Learning Catalytics.

First off, students frequently struggle with visualization skills in astronomy. Many astronomical processes are difficult to draw or demonstrate in class. Yet, with the Narrated Figures items...

Students learn through short, narrated lessons that instructors can assign prior to lectures as introductory materials so students arrive prepared - or as homework to reinforce lessons and assess comprehension through associated questions. Students will find the art clear an easy to understand, while instructors will be able to identify common misconceptions by using the gradebook diagnostics.

Next, students find planetarium software interesting, yet because of its complexities, they often don't know how to meaningfully interact with it without proper guidance. Frequently, the facilities for true labs are very limited. With Virtual Astronomy Labs...

Students are able to explore the universe through narrated figures and planetarium software. These labs teach them to use Stellarium. As they are guided through the software, assessment questions test their understanding of the experiment.

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

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

Lastly, instructors search for ways to help students learn from astronomical images. Yet, often times those students just glance at the images in their books and don't comprehend the amount of information found within that artwork. But with Interactive Figures...

Students will improve their understanding of tough astronomy topics. They will learn from astronomical images and answer assessment questions that provide feedback to help them learn from their mistakes. Students are held accountable for working with those images and instructors are able to identify misconceptions through the gradebook diagnostics.

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