The Problem with Connect for Finance
McGraw Hill Connect has been the default finance courseware for a long time. It runs, it's stable, and it's what most departments already know. But the tradeoffs stack up.
SmartBook leads with adaptive reading, and students skim it. Assignments open in a new tab into the Connect environment instead of embedding inside Canvas or Blackboard. The well-known question banks routinely circulate on Chegg and Course Hero. Every edition cycle you rebuild your assignment mappings. And students pay each semester through access codes or Inclusive Access.
For a finance instructor who just wants students to build intuition, submit graded work, and keep grades flowing to the LMS, there should be a simpler option.
What a Modern Finance Course Platform Should Do
A good replacement for Connect in a finance class should remove the friction without stripping out what already works:
- Video-first content. Filmed with practitioners, chunked into 5–12 minute lessons, not adaptive reading modules.
- Embed inside the LMS. Students should never bounce out of Canvas, Blackboard, or Brightspace to submit work.
- Unique-per-student questions. Not just reseeded numbers on a fixed template. The whole question should be different.
- No access codes. Single-click access from the LMS. No Inclusive Access bill each semester.
- Portable, editable content. Reorder, swap, or add your own videos and case studies. Run it as a full course shell or as a supplement.
- Content that carries over. Semester-to-semester refresh should not depend on a publisher's edition cycle.
How Blended Teaching Works
Blended Teaching is a video-led course platform built for finance instructors. Financial Management, Real Estate Principles, Real Estate Finance, and Real Estate Investment are live today. The workflow has three steps.
Adopt a video-led finance course
Every course is a full semester of short video chapters filmed with AACSB-accredited faculty and practitioners. Use it as a full replacement for Connect, or drop it in as a supplement alongside your existing textbook. You can reorder units, swap chapters, and add your own videos, links, or case studies.
Embed it in your LMS
Blended embeds directly inside Canvas, Blackboard, and Brightspace via LTI 1.3. Students click in and stay in the LMS. No new tab, no separate portal, no access code. Rosters sync. Grades pass back automatically in seconds.
Run auto-graded Dynamic MCQs
Assessment runs on Dynamic MCQs: questions where each student sees a distinct version of the whole question, not just different numbers. Sharing an answer on Chegg or Discord doesn't help another student, because the question they see is different. If you also give paper exams, our free Paper Exam Grader auto-grades scanned PDFs on any office scanner.
Why Finance Instructors Leave Connect
Four themes come up in almost every switch conversation.
Videos build intuition that adaptive reading does not. SmartBook is well-engineered as a reading tool, but students still skim it. Filmed lessons hold attention differently.
"Reading off of a screen puts a lot of people to sleep. You just don't get good engagement that way." — Steve Buschbom, Finance Instructor
Full LMS integration matters more than instructors expect. Connect supports LTI 1.3, but assignments typically launch into a separate Connect environment. Keeping students inside the LMS removes a surprising amount of support friction.
"What kind of solidified it for me was being able to get that full integration." — Tim Dombrowski, Finance Instructor
Semester refresh without the overhaul. Connect's legacy titles rev on edition cycles, and even the newer Evergreen titles update on the publisher's cadence. When your content and questions carry over on your own terms, prep for the next semester is measured in minutes, not weeks.
"It's gonna take a lot of time for me to update the McGraw-Hill setup if I had gone that route." — Tim Dombrowski, Finance Instructor
Questions that cannot be shared. Dynamic MCQs generate the whole question per student: same concept, same difficulty, different setup. Answer sharing stops being useful.
Who This Is For
Blended Teaching is built for finance and real estate instructors who want to:
- Stop rebuilding their course every edition cycle
- Get students off publisher access codes
- Assess without watching answers leak to Chegg
- Keep the entire student experience inside Canvas, Blackboard, or Brightspace
- Start free, without waiting for departmental adoption
There is no per-student access code, no trial period, and no credit card required to try it. If your department later wants an institutional plan, that option is available too.
Ready to Switch?
Get the video-led experience finance students actually engage with, plus assessment that doesn't leak. Most instructors are live in under a week.
See what's inside the finance courses or read the side-by-side comparison to see how Blended stacks up against Connect on the questions instructors ask most.
