Learnvia courseware intends to improve student success, while also improving instructor job satisfaction. 

Implementation approaches

Instructors who adopt Learnvia courseware can do so to varying degrees.  

"Standard" approach: The most common approach is to replace your textbook and homework with Learnvia's courseware. 

• Syllabus: List Learnvia as the "required" textbook/homework. 
  • No other textbook is required, as Learnvia is a complete textbook (online and interactive); requiring two can confuse students.  
  • Ideally, no other online homework system is required, to reduce confusion and technical barriers. Some instructors may desire handwritten homework, which is fine.
• Course points: Award points for completing Learnvia tasks. 
  • We recommend 5-10 pts for Lesson tasks, 5-10 for Homework tasks, and 5-10 for Self-quiz tasks. So total course points from Learnvia is 15-30 pts, out of 100. A common pattern is 10/10/5 (Lessons/Hks/Qzs). Points help ensure the students do the work, especially those who need it most.

Even better is to do one or more of: 

• Configure your Learnvia Kit such that each chapter corresponds to one week, thus providing transparency for students, and enabling a recurring assignment pattern that reduces anxiety. Learnvia provides off-the-shelf weekly configurations, which you can adjust to match your class. 
  • Assign Lesson tasks to be completed before their corresponding class. This frees class time to do some small-group activities, some lecture with more examples and/or applications, etc. 
  • Assign Homework and Quiz tasks to be completed after class, e.g., a week's Hks due Fri, Qzs due Sat. (Note: Due to the way Hk/Qz tasks are embedded in modules, students are likely to work ahead, which is great for them).
• Use Learnvia's test bank to create your summative assessments. This ensures "alignment" with Learnvia's Lesson, Homework, and Self-quiz tasks, avoiding the most-common student complaint that they felt exams didn't match their prep work. 
• Demonstrate in class ways to use the AI tutor, and normalize struggle, asking questions, and making mistakes.
• Make use of the embedded professional learning resources, especially the feedback tailored to your class based on the embedded student surveys.
• Encourage use of the discussion forum (and don't use a separate forum). 

Underlying principles

Student success is improved due to the extensive learning happening outside class, supplementing the learning in class. 

Instructor job satisfaction is improved via: 

• Reduced time: Auto-grading reduces instructor grunt work (allowing grading of higher-value items if desired).   Course setup/configuration is reduced due to the courseware already aligning lessons, homeworks, and quizzes, and even pre-configuring per week
• Fewer issues: Student complaints go down since more students stay on track, demand for help reduces (fewer emails, shorter office-hour lines), requests for extensions are fewer (due to simple assignment pattern, immediate and partial credit), and more.
• Higher-value engagements: Student class time is elevated due to prepared students and more interesting class activities, instructors have more time to answer questions and if desired intervene with struggling students, questions are less repetitive, etc. 

Regarding lessons, variation in student preparation prior to taking a course is often noted by instructors as the biggest challenge of teaching gateway courses. Doing lessons outside class helps adjust for student variation, allows students to self-pace, learning from the immediate feedback, and able to dynamically review background material that is built-in or via the AI tutor. A safe non-judgmental learning space lets students take extra time, ask questions of the AI tutor or anonymously on the discussion forum, and more, without being watched by classmates or instructors. The video animation of key concepts and the incremental steps (scaffolding) taken in lessons ensures students get lost. Earning points encourages students to actually do the work outside class. 

Regarding homeworks, the questions are designed to work closely with the lessons, ensuring careful scaffolding and material alignment. Providing solutions allows students to learn from worked examples, shown to be extremely powerful in learning science. Auto-generated questions allows unlimited attempts, reducing stress associated with running out of allowed attempts. The careful lesson and homework alignment, plus available solutions, reduces the need to cheat via copying solutions from online or AI. 

Regarding quizzes, the built-in "self quizzes", coming from the same question bank as real quizzes/exams allow students to assess their understanding, and strengthen weak areas, without fear of grade penalties. Research shows students take great advantage of this opportunity, with learning benefits. The questions are carefully aligned with the lessons and homework, reducing the common student exam complaint that the pre-exam work didn't prepare them for the exams.