Many professors prefer using MyLab Math together with physical math textbooks because it’s convenient and gives more freedom and flexibility (especially in the remote learning environment). From basic math courses like calculus and statistics to math for business and STEM subjects, MyLab Math was designed to help educators and students make a learning process more effective, practice more, get feedback fast, and make grading easier. In this article, we’ll take a look at the system and its features and discuss the pros and cons of using it as primarily educational material.
What Is MyMathLab?
MyLab Math is an online interactive and educational system from Pearson Higher Education. More specifically, it’s an online tutorial and assessment tool for teaching and learning mathematics. Its resources correspond with the physical math textbooks from Pearson. Its objective is to help teachers streamline learning, connect with every student directly, and enable more effective guidance. Numerous customization options allow for creating optimal learning and teaching experience.
Pearson launched MyLab Math in July 2001 under the name MyMathLab. In 2016 it was rebranded as MyLab Math, with new features added to improve the system with new capabilities and help make learning and teaching more efficient. MyMathLab for school helps educators reach every student: “Personalize the learning experience and improve results for each student with MyLab.”
MyLab Math
MyLab Math is one of the 70+ online programs in a variety of subjects offered by Pearson. Students get their homework assignments on the MyLab platform, do quizzes and tests, and use multimedia tutorials. Teachers can personalize homework assignments and give feedback and grades—all on the platform.
The entire goal of MyMathLab is to improve the results of all math students by giving access to all this homework, tutorials, and assessment products.
Who Is MyMathLab For?
MyMathLab for school is designed for both teachers and students. According to the 2017 report, “MyLab Math is used primarily in the United States market, with around 3 million student registrations annually.”
| Features for Educators | Features for Students |
|---|---|
| – Personalized homework – Freehand grader – Performance analytics – Early alerts – Educational videos – Scheduled reading – Tools for visualization and conceptual understanding – Ready-to-go teaching modules – Online proctoring | – Personalized homework and study tools – Companion study plan assignments – Skill builder – Immediate feedback – The mobile eTexts |
If needed, teachers can create customized Interactive MyLab Math and MyLab Statistics courses to provide their students with interactive, guided learning experiences. To create a customized course, educators just need to log in to MyLab Math or MyLab Statistics and search for one of the titles listed on the Titles tab:
All MyLab interactive assignments have three steps: read, take a quiz, and do homework:
Here is what one of the interactive assignments in MyMathLab looks like:
While Math and Statistics are the oldest and the most popular courses, Pearson has other subjects in MyLab and Mastering to offer to students:
How Much Does MyMathLab Cost?
Full access to a MyMathLab course costs $49.97. However, if your school district pays for you to access the platform, you don’t have to pay. Instead, you will receive a MyMathLab access code to proceed with registration.
How Effective Is MyMathLab?
According to the research carried out by Pearson in 2016 in collaboration with faculty at five community colleges in the U.S., MyLab Math considerably helped students improve their math skills and performance in comparison to traditional teaching methods.
According to the research findings, more students could pass the course successfully, improve their scores, and succeed in their online courses.
MyLab Math (MyMathLab) doesn’t have many reviews, and the results of the aforementioned report are provided by Pearson. As the existing reviews are scarce, it’s hard to draw a conclusion about the tool’s real effectiveness. Some students find the system highly effective, easy to use, and real help for their studies, while others report bugginess, problems with correct answers, hard-to-follow explanations, etc.
MyMathLab Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| – Easy-to-use website and mobile app version – Numerous questions and assignments with various difficulty levels – Ability to export the assessment items to an assessment management tool outside the platform – The integration with the textbook – Helps stay organized – Immediate feedback | – Buying an eTextbook is required for class preparation. – No access to the book after the semester ends – Some students report platform bugginess. – The inability to easily retrieve saved assessments – MyMathLab answer system can make mistakes sometimes |
Conclusion
MyLab Math (MyMathLab) is an interactive online learning platform for teachers and students that helps improve the process of learning math and make it more effective. You can use it either independently or as a part of a class or course. You can also choose the level you need: from elementary math to college-level math. According to the resources we’ve reviewed, MyMathLab’s feedback is not unanimous: some students liked it a lot, while others faced certain complications while using it. All in all, despite the fact that students have to pay for doing homework, the software seems to help them go through math classes much easier. At BooksRun, our job is to provide you with the most relevant information, so you can decide whether this tool is worth trying or not.
