Math Class Survival Hacks

If you are reading this, it means that you are enrolled in a Unity Environmental University mathematics course and you are here to see what help resources are available to you.  In this document, you will find items that are important to consider when you are enrolled in an online college mathematics course.  

Let’s get started.

Professor

Your first point-of-contact for course questions and help.

• First and foremost, your professor is your main point-of-contact for all questions, issues, and concerns you might have about your math course. 
• This help center, and the tutoring services, that Unity offers is not intended to be a substitute for your professor.
• Connecting with your professor is a proven approach to achieve academic success.
• Unity professors are student-centered educators – they have a passion for teaching and they are ready to help you.  
• Be sure you have reviewed your professor’s contact information as well as open office hours available in the classroom. 

Math Hub

Just-in-time supplemental help resources.

• The purpose of this help resource center is to provide you with additional support that will help you succeed in your math course.  Here you will find tutorials, videos, and helpful resources. 

Pear Deck (formally TutorMe)

Tutoring subscription service available for Unity students

• Available 24/7
• 8 hours total per year
• Look for the links in the math help center or within your course navigation menu.

Make sure you have what you need to succeed

• Reliable device and reliable access to the Internet.
• Make sure you can access all resources (pages, videos, textbook) inside Canvas without issue.
• Access to a good calculator (see free online calculator resources list).
• Professor’s contact information!
  • Send a help request when you need it, don’t wait until the last minute. 

Get organized

• Time management is the key to success no matter the project, activity, course, or endeavor! 
• If possible, set up a dedicated place to study. If you can’t set up a designated space, you can at least set up a designated time to work on your math course. 
• Carve out times throughout the week to work on your math course.  Perhaps you can set aside a block of time each day during a time when you might have the least distractions.  
• Do not wait until the weekend to get started on your math assignments.  While this strategy might work in some classes, it is proven to be an anxiety producing event when trying to confront learning and applying new mathematics materials in a compressed time frame.  
• Learning unfamiliar mathematics requires the digestion of new concepts, relationships, terminology, and processes that take time to learn.  
• Learning mathematics is a combination of learning knowledge and skills.
• Mathematics is also a class where you are asked to put these skills to work.  Essentially, you can not learn math without doing math.
• Be prepared to reach out for help.  Ideally, you will reach out to your professor first, but you can also check out other resources as well.

Get Messy, Make Mistakes

• Making mistakes in math is inevitable and getting things wrong will happen.  
• That’s OK!  That’s part of the learning process.  When you get it wrong, it is a learning opportunity to see what happened – where in your acquisition of new knowledge or new skills did you get off track?  
• In a way, this process models real decision making in the real world.  
• Professionals have to digest large amounts of information and data and make decisions – sometimes they get it right, but other times they get it wrong.  
• Learning from mistakes makes us better decision makers and critical thinkers.  Remember when you learned how to ride a bike?  You didn’t just hop on and ride off into the sunset?  You fell off.  You crashed.  Then you got back on again.  Learning mathematics is no different than this process. 

Try & Try, Again & Again

• Work through any provided examples and see if you get the same results. 
• If not, keep plugging away, but don’t do the same things over and over again. Take the time to reconsider the steps you just tried and make changes as needed. 
• If you can’t figure out what’s going on, or the steps are confusing, ask for help.  It is common for those of us used to solving problems to gloss over a step or two that students might need to see.  Let us know so that we can improve our teaching while also helping you figure things out! 
• If you get things wrong, ask the professor for guidance and request another opportunity to try again.  
• Of course, you can come back here to see if there are any help resources that will provide you the guidance you need.

Avoid frustration!

• Ask for help early and often!
• Do not put off asking for help.   
• Procrastination is the grade killer!

Be honest to yourself, you’ll thank yourself later! 

• Whenever you are confronted with unfamiliar work in a new course, there is always the potential impulse to search the internet for help resources or, worse, look for solutions that have been uploaded by previous students.
• You are doing yourself a disservice when you access and use materials from services like CourseHero and Quizlet to just find the answers.  
• You are smart.  You are capable.  You have grit.  You can do this.  If you couldn’t, you wouldn’t be here would you?  
• Put your own intelligence and abilities to the test, stretch your boundaries, be daring, dive in, you can do this!  
• By now, you know that you are not alone in this.
  • You have your professor to help you.  
  • You are enrolled in a course with other students who are in the same boat as you so reach out and form a learning community!  
  • You have the resources of this help center as well as TutorMe.  

Review

• Do not hesitate to reach out to your help resources.
  • Professor
  • Help Center & Pear Deck
• Make sure you have what you need to succeed. 
• Get organized. Time management is the key.
• Making mistakes is OK.
• Keep Trying! 
• Ask for help early and often!
• Avoid Frustration!
• Be honest with yourself.