Soomo Learning

10/31/2024

Public Speaking for Everyone helps students take an audience-centered approach. Our audience analysis feature prompts students to think critically about who they’re speaking to.

Through questions like “What is your age range?” and “How important is religious faith in your life?” students gather data that deepens their understanding of their classmates’s perspectives and values.

Students reflect on audience data before each speech. This process not only helps them craft more effective messages but also reinforces good habits for analyzing their audience every time they prepare.

Visit soomo.co/publicspeaking to learn more!

10/29/2024

Paws! Stop scrolling and look at these cats—it’s good for your health! Recent studies have shown that images and videos of cats can actually lower your blood pressure, slow your heart rate, and reduce your stress levels.

In a 2020 study from the University of Leeds (soomo.co/cat-day-study), college students were shown images and videos of cute animals 90 minutes before taking an exam. All of them experienced a drop in levels of anxiety. So the next time you or your students are feeling overwhelmed, remember: seek out cats.

*This message has been paid for by the Cat World Domination Fund.

A special thanks to our wonderful intern Ryan Madden for making this cat-tacular graphic!

10/25/2024

Today we celebrate Lauren Player, our incredibly kind and thoughtful Director of Customer Success. Lauren leads the team that directly advocates for students and instructors, collaborating with teams across Soomo to share their firsthand insights to improve the teaching and learning experience for webtext users.

Learning and teaching require a lot of effort, and the Customer Success team respects that work by making sure they provide friendly and timely solutions to any issues that arise for students or instructors.

Lauren is inspired by all students, especially those who are determined to pursue their degree while juggling significant responsibilities like career and family. She’s proud to help create solutions that encourage persistence and greater confidence in students—and we, at Soomo, are so proud of her work and leadership.

Learn more about us at soomolearning.com.

10/23/2024

A recent survey from Inside Higher Ed (soomo.co/AI-survey) found that a large number of undergrads don’t know how and when to use AI appropriately. We designed Critical Thinking with AI to support faculty in teaching students how to engage with AI. In this video, author Adrienne Kaufmann shows how students interact with AI chatboxes in the text.

Through structured activities, students practice interacting with AI. They reflect on their interactions in writing templates, which instructors can review and leave feedback on.

As the authors highlight in our blog post (soomo.co/blog-AI), “The goal here is to teach [students] that in order to use AI effectively, they have got to incorporate their own critical thinking.”

Learn more at soomo.co/AI.

10/16/2024

Looking to help your students engage with the big ideas of American government? Our best-selling webtext, Central Ideas in American Government, spotlights fundamental concepts so that students can better understand them.

Each chapter is built around 3–5 central ideas that are clearly stated in the chapter introduction, developed throughout chapter content, and explored through concrete examples in special Investigation pages.

What’s more, each central idea is aligned with a learning outcome, designed to help students see the bigger picture.

As a student, author Jocelyn Evans was captivated by these powerful ideas. She’s developed this webtext to ignite that same sense of curiosity in students, encouraging them to engage critically with the political issues shaping today’s world.

Want to see how the central ideas structure the webtext? Click “Look inside” on our catalog page at soomo.co/ciag. And head on over to our new blog post at soomo.co/blog-evans to read about how the big ideas of political philosophy inspired Jocelyn and influenced the webtext.

10/11/2024

Louisville, we have arrived! Author Jennifer Harper and Account Manager Melinda Thielges are delighted to be joining faculty with an interest in Teaching and Learning at the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s Annual Conference on Teaching. Come swing by our table—Janet Peters did! We’re eager to get your feedback on two exciting webtexts: Psychology in the Real World and the brand new Critical Thinking with AI.

Both titles help students develop foundational skills they can use in their academic, professional, and personal lives.

Not attending this year? Explore both webtexts yourself at soomolearning.com—and don’t miss Jennifer Harper’s blog post (soomo.co/blog-harper) about her journey from pawn shop to professor!

10/08/2024

Looking for a way to make politics hit home for your students? Our Texas Politics webtext bridges the gap between what goes on in government and everyday life. With interactive opinion polls, in-depth investigations, and people-on-the-street videos, the text shows students how political decisions impact the communities they care about.

Author Jim Henson—professor at The University of Texas at Austin and co-founder of the Texas Politics Project—believes you can engage all intro students by using the tools in this webtext to make course content resonate more deeply.

Check out our latest blog post to learn more about Jim's approach (soomo.co/blog-henson), and start exploring the webtext today at soomo.co/txp.

Left image: author Jim Henson on Zoom.
Top image: an embedded people-on-the-street video.
Bottom image: an interactive student poll.

09/30/2024

Helene may have knocked out our power and flooded our streets, but be assured our webtexts are still functioning normally and student and instructor support are available. As always, you can see our status at status.soomolearning.com.

Our team in Asheville and the surrounding areas has been and continues to be affected by the storm. Fortunately, we have a distributed team with employees in areas that were not impacted. We appreciate all the concern and heartfelt messages we’ve been receiving.

If you’d like to help flood victims in NC, Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR) News has put together a list of relief organizations that you can support here: soomo.co/bpr-donation-list.

09/25/2024

Happy to our favorite superheroes: professors! It’s our mission to support them. And to the faculty we’ve already teamed up with, we are honored to be the Alfred to your Batman.

We design our webtexts to make educators feel superpowered in the classroom. And our live support team—made up of real people here in Asheville and across the country—is always ready to swoop in and provide instructors with any help they may need, whether it’s integrating a webtext with their LMS or tailoring courses to their syllabi.

You can learn more about how we support professors by visiting soomolearning.com/services.

And thank you to the amazing Ryan Madden—one of our incredibly talented interns—for creating this original illustration!

09/24/2024

When it comes to public speaking, author Elizabeth Jones has a simple philosophy: anyone can do it. You don’t need to be an extravert. You just need to practice. We developed Public Speaking for Everyone around this belief.

Students use a built-in video recorder (powered by GoReact) to record practice speeches that instructors and classmates can easily leave time-stamped feedback on. This tool empowers students to confidently and effectively deliver speeches when the time comes.

Check out our new blog post at soomo.co/blog-jones to learn more about the author and our approach to designing the webtext. And if you’d like to explore the book for yourself, visit soomo.co/publicspeaking.

09/17/2024

Want to give your intro students a psych book they’ll actually connect with? Consider Psychology in the Real World. With relatable examples, clear language, and an emphasis on applying concepts to the real world, students can more easily engage with the material and use it to better understand themselves and the people around them.

Author Jennifer Harper, PhD, has years of experience in the classroom connecting with students of all backgrounds. You can learn more about her experiences—from pawn shop to professor to published author—in her recent blog post at soomo.co/blog-harper.

And for more on the text, visit soomo.co/psych.

09/11/2024

We’re so lucky to have an executive editor like Jenny Westrick, who deeply cares about instructors, students, and the webtexts we create to support them.

Jenny leads our editorial team, overseeing the development of our interactive webtexts, including the ones we tailor-make for courses at specific universities. She’s motivated by the students who say we’ve helped them become confident and engaged learners—and also by the promise of one day being able to develop a webtext devoted entirely to the history of witches.

Learn more about us at soomolearning.com!

09/09/2024

On your marks, get set, go! It’s easy for instructors to get started with Soomo. In this race, John Alfieri and Georgia Mason go head-to-head to see who can get into a webtext the fastest!

If you are an instructor who wants to review any of our webtexts, you can get access in under a minute! All you have to do is visit soomolearning.com and click “Get Started” on our homepage or any catalog page. After filling out a short form, we’ll send you a link to confirm your email address and take you to a preview of any webtext you’re interested in.

From there, you can even create your own course! Just answer a few questions, customize your table of contents (add, drop, or rearrange chapters), and we’ll handle the rest!

Warning: there are flashing lights in this video.

09/03/2024

Learning is hard! That’s just one reason why we put so much effort into making our webtexts easy to use. We develop our webtext content and platform hand-in-hand, entirely in-house, to support effective learning. By following universal design principles, we strive to create smooth user experiences for everyone—but you don’t have to take our word for it!

Whenever we’re working on new features, we ask ourselves questions like: “Can a student use this from a mobile device with intermittent access to data connections?” and “Will this interface work with the assistive technologies we know so many students rely on?” We have found considerations like these improve our product for all users.

Beyond being easy to use, we also have to be there when students are ready to work. We’re very proud that our annual uptime record consistently exceeds 99.99%—meaning the number of users impacted by outages is extremely small.

You can learn more about our platform at soomolearning.com/platform.

08/29/2024

No matter which LMS you use—Canvas, Blackboard, Brightspace or another platform—we can seamlessly integrate with it. Our LTI Advantage integration (certified by 1EdTech) centralizes everything your students need in one place, from showing them scores and due dates to granting them one-click access to their webtext.

Our LMS Specialist Maclin Sweeney and the rest of our Customer Success team are here to help you create a smooth learning experience for your students. You can learn more about what we offer at soomolearning.com/platform.

08/26/2024

104 years ago today, the 19th Amendment was certified, officially completing the process that gave women the right to vote! In celebration, we’re sharing our much-loved parody video, Bad Romance: Women’s Suffrage. Check it out at soomo.co/vimeo_badromance.

And if you can’t get enough of suffragists singing and dancing, we highly recommend Suffs Musical on Broadway!

Emmy recipient for Best Informational / Instructional Program The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Nashville/Midsouth Chapter, 2012 For lyrics…

08/23/2024

Soomo webtexts don’t just make it easier for students to learn; they also make it easier for instructors to spot students who are struggling or falling behind. From their weekly email reports, instructors can quickly see which students have low completion or low scores, making it easier to reach out and offer support for students who need it.

Want to see other features of our platform? Visit soomolearning.com/platform for more.

08/20/2024

We really like this recent study from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) (soomo.co/syllabus-study). It found that students appreciate inclusive practices in the course syllabus. Inside Higher Ed published a great article about the findings, which you can read at soomo.co/ihe-inclusive-syllabus. And if you’re looking for some tips for making your syllabus more inclusive, our editors have put together a guide that can help! You can download it now for free at soomo.co/inclusive-syllabus-guide.

08/15/2024

Take a tour of Critical Thinking with AI led by author and professor Adrienne Kaufmann! This resource, which only costs $10 per student for the fall semester, can be used as a supplement to any course to teach the ethical and effective use of AI.

We’re currently offering a limited number of FREE sections (one per instructor) for the fall semester. Learn more at soomo.co/AI.

08/13/2024

Did you catch the 200th episode of PsychSessions: Conversations about Teaching 'N Stuff? Dr. Elliot Aronson talks about how psychology has played a role in his personal life–such as in his relationship with his wife Vera (they’ve been married for 70 years!) and in his understanding of others.

Applying the insights of psychology to our own lives is a major theme of our introductory webtext, Psychology in the Real World. We show students how studying the discipline can help them understand more about their own perceptions, feelings, and motivations. We emphasize the emotional, biological, and sociocultural factors behind who we are and how we see the world.

You can listen to the episode with Dr. Aronson at soomo.co/psychsessions and learn more about our webtext at soomo.co/psych.

08/09/2024

Are your students using AI? Teach them how to use it ethically and effectively with our new online, interactive text: Critical Thinking with AI (soomo.co/AI). This three-chapter resource is designed to supplement any course in any discipline.

An embedded chatbox allows students to interact with AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude, putting their knowledge into practice. There’s also an optional badge exam, which students can add to their resumes and LinkedIn profiles.

The text only costs $10 per student for fall courses–and we’re currently offering a limited number of free sections (1 per instructor) on a first-come, first-served basis.

Set up your course today at soomolearning.com. We can quickly and easily integrate it with your LMS!

08/07/2024

Today at 2 p.m. ET, we’re hosting a webinar on how to use think-pair-share in your classroom. Author Jennifer Harper will guide attendees through a hands-on session, providing tips to facilitate discussion and create an inclusive teaching environment. Sign up now at soomo.co/think-pair-share-webinar.

08/05/2024

There’s still time to make your syllabus more inclusive before the semester starts! Use our free template and guide, inspired by Kelly A. Hogan and Viji Sathy’s book “Inclusive Teaching.” Just visit: soomo.co/inclusive-syllabus-guide

08/02/2024

Want to turn your classroom into a conversation? Join our upcoming webinar on think-pair-share, a strategy to incorporate active learning in your course. In this interactive session, you can expect to learn some best practices for facilitating classroom conversations and creating an inclusive teaching environment.

Author Jennifer Harper, PhD, will lead the workshop next Wednesday, August 7th, at 2pm ET. Sign up today at soomo.co/think-pair-share-webinar. We hope to see you there!