Learning Environment

SaplingLearning.com combines world-class content, proven instructional technology, engaging and relevant learning experiences, and effective instruction into an easy to use and powerful online learning system.

Exceptional Instructional Content

• Quality content – SaplingLearning.com content is written by leaders in online education who have authored some of the most highly regarded instructional content on the Web today. Our authors apply their advanced science degrees, teaching experience, and a decade of experience gleaned creating content for leading publishers to the SaplingLearning.com curriculum.

• Engaging interactive experiences – One goal of SaplingLearning.com is to form a more transparent association between lecture and lab. This is achieved by asking students to conduct mini-experiments to derive a value required to solve a problem. Students also benefit from the powerful interactive media that is embedded within question content.

Proven Technology

SaplingLearning.com is based upon our flagship software product, IBIS^TM, a rich Flash-based internet application that has been adopted by more than 70,000 users in connection with leading textbooks since 2005.

Rich Interactions

The goal of instructional activities is to prepare students for exams and future coursework. For science and math courses with written exams, it is important that students perform the same tasks online that they will be asked to do on their exams. For courses that can only provide students multiple-choice exams, having graded rich interactions within the online learning environment that mimic pencil-and-paper interactions is all the more important.

SaplingLearning.com features the SaplingScienceSuite^TM collection of the industry’s richest interactive tools for teaching science. These go far beyond the multiple choice and fill-in question types typically found in other learning systems, and instead provide engaging learning experiences and necessary relevance for science and math online learning. Sapling's discipline-specific interactions ask students to communicate using the nomenclature and symbolism of the subject being studied.

All interactions are assessable, so students know when mastery over a skill or topic has been achieved. Click on the links below to experience demonstration questions that include just a few of the many rich interactions within SaplingLearning.com.

• MolQuiz – Rotate and make atom selections on molecules in 3D
• MolViz – Draw Lewis structures and sketch organic reaction mechanisms
• Graphing – Draw or reconfigure curves and lines, graph equations, and construct scatter plots
• Chemical Equation Editor – Write chemical equations, including state symbols and labeled reaction arrows, without code, markup, or special formatting characters.
• Mathematics Equation Editor – Write equations like they would be presented in a textbook, without code, markup, or special formatting characters.
• Orbital Diagram– Draw molecular and atomic orbital diagrams
• Vector Diagram – Draw vector (free-body) diagrams to illustrate the forces acting on objects
• Ranking and Sorting – Organize items and concepts in groups or in sequential order
• Numeric Entry Tool – Enter numbers using an editor for scientific notation and complex units
• Short Answer – Enter text using palette for inserting common scientific symbols

Effective Instruction

Algorithmic content – Within the Sapling Learning Environment, the names and values are randomized within each question in an activity the names and values are randomized to give each student a slightly different version of the question. This allows students to practice problem-solving strategies on different versions of a question or activity multiple times. Within a class, algorithmic content assures that students are doing their own work.

Instant Feedback – When students struggle, SaplingLearning.com instantly provides powerful and effective instruction that is targeted towards their mistake. No more waiting for written feedback on hand-graded assignments. This is important, as students are at no other time more receptive towards instruction than when they are actively trying to solve a problem.

Multiple Layers of Instruction:

• Tutorial mentoring – For challenging questions where students need more than standard feedback, tutorial instruction is provided. Using a Socratic teaching style, much like a tutor or instructor providing one-on-one instruction, tutorials ask students simpler questions that help them derive required pieces of information and lead them towards an understanding of how to solve the problem. In this manner, students are actively engaged in their own remediation, resulting in a longer retention of what they have learned.
• Mastery Through Guided Solutions – Guided solutions are a powerful combination of the tutorial and algorithmic capabilities of the Sapling Learning Environment. Here, a tutorial is given to a student that guides the student by breaking the solution into a handful of questions, asking him or her to perform one step at a time. However, after the student has been coached towards a correct answer, he or she is asked to prove they have mastered this question by tackling it again, this time with different values in the question. If they fail, they are again coached with the guided solution with the new values. Only when the student has answered the question correctly without help do they receive credit.
• Specific Incorrect Answer Feedback – When a student enters an incorrect answer, feedback is often very specific to the answer the student gave, especially for common student mistakes. Even tutorial mentoring can be specific to a common student misconception. This targeted feedback is the most effective instruction that can be given to a student.
• Hints – A student can view a hint at any time with no penalty. Hints are provided to point a student in the right direction, or outline a strategy for solving the problem.