QUESTION: How do my students get a username and password?
You can register up to 36 accounts with a single class membership. (There is no limit for those with school or district accounts.) Most teachers register all the students in a class individually. Students have the option of submitting individually, or in groups of two, three, or four students. Some teachers will register teams of students under a team name instead of the names of individual students.
For privacy reasons, please review your school's Internet policy and our privacy policy before designating student usernames. We comply with the COPPA legislation that requires permission for students under 13. When you register students, you are indicating that you are authorized to grant this permission for your students. If your students' names must not appear on a Web site, you'll need to choose nicknames or use initials judiciously.
To Create Accounts:
You may already have done this as part of your account set-up process. But if you did not, or if you need to add more students:
- Go to My PoW Work—linked in the left navigation bar once you're logged in.
- Locate "My Accounts" in the right column.
- Use the link Manage my purchase. This will allow you to do anything else you haven't finished from your account setup process—create classes, choose Library and Write Math segments, choose discussion groups, set up student accounts—up to the limit of your purchase. (If you think you should be able to create more student accounts and you don't see a button here to do that, contact us by email or phone: 800-756-7823, option 1.)
- Choose "Create Student." Then choose a class in which to add the student.
- At the top of the next page, you'll see one of two things: either a line reading "No students available", or a list of students in your school who have Math Forum accounts. If you see students here, you can choose them to add to your class. Next, below the yellow warning box, you'll see how many student accounts you have remaining—there are 36 per class.
- You can set up a student account for yourself, in order to be able to submit your own answers to problems, but mostly you'll leave the radio button for that question set to "no". If your student already has a username and password, from a previous year perhaps, you can choose to identify those with the next radio button. If not, continue filling in the boxes for the form.
- You'll choose a password for each student. Keep track of what usernames and passwords you choose as you make them—you will be responsible for giving them to your students. Students will need their username and password to access the problems online and to submit their answers. Please remember that passwords are case sensitive: "CRIMPBUR" is not the same as "crimpbur".
- We encourage you not to list an email address for your students, for privacy reasons, and because they are so often mistyped. The Message Center should take care of all your emailing needs.
- If you want to be able to mentor your own students' replies in the Office later, there's one more step to take. From your My PoW Work page, in the left column under Mentoring My Students, there's a line that says "Manage automatic assignment of my students' work to me". You can choose to assess your own students on a class-wide basis or individually—just choose the corresponding link. If your students are not assigned to you, their work will be visible to you (through the "View Work" link in the "My Students' Work" box at the top right of the My PoW Work page), but you will not be able to use our software to respond to them. If they are being mentored through one of our free mentoring opportunities or by a paid mentor instead of by you, don't assign them to yourself. You will see your name in the column "Current Auto Assign Mentor" when they are assigned to you.
If you have questions, please contact us by email [any time]
or phone: 800-756-7823, option 1 [Mon - Fri, 8:00 am - 6 pm Eastern].