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Adopting Adaptive Technology? A Case Study on ALEKS

  • Ezra Liu 

This post is based on Ezra Liu and Sarah Silverman’s research on the adaptive technology ALEKS. We hope it can offer you a glimpse into this technology and perhaps spark some interest in learning more about adaptive technology in general.

Background

ALEKS is an artificially intelligent learning and assessment system created by the McGraw Hill company. The program assesses students’ knowledge level in a certain subject and curates a learning plan based on big data that best suits their needs. It is generally used for math, chemistry and statistics. Teachers can select certain topics or concepts that students need to master in order to pass the course. ALEKS will introduce certain topics to students based on their performances on assessments throughout the course. Students will continue to practice and review a topic until they have mastered it, which means continuously getting the answers right. The pace of learning is controlled by the students. Once students master a certain topic, new topics appropriate for their level become available to them. Teachers can monitor each student’s progress and behaviours based on the students’ performances and interactions with ALEKS. 

Feature Highlights

Instructor dashboard: There are numerous tools available for the instructor on the dashboard, I have selected a few interesting tools to highlight below. 

ALEKS Pie

This is arguably the most iconic feature available to instructors in ALEKS. A colorful pie representing different topic areas is displayed. Each topic area is represented by a different color and it breaks down into individual topics set by the instructor. The pie shows how many topics have been learned by all students in the class. Instructors have the option to click on each individual topic and see which students have learned the topic and which students have yet to. 

Progress Reports

This feature shows each student’s progress in the course based on how many topics they have learned, mastered and have remaining. Instructors can also see how much time each student spent in ALEKS and their learning rate (topics/hour). This information may help instructors to identify students that might be struggling in the course. 

Standards

For this feature instructors can look at how many students have mastered each topic set by the instructor. Instructors can also check the topics’ levels at different assessment points. This feature can help instructors to see which topics might be posing the biggest challenge for students and focus more on them. 

Student Dashboard

Students have access to some of the similar features as the instructor. Students can view their progress and keep track of their assignments. They also have the ALEKS pie chart available to them. This way they can see which topics they need to focus on and which ones they have mastered. Furthermore, students can monitor their grades through the Gradebook and use the Calendar to stay on top of the course. 

Use at Dearborn

ALEKS is used in a few programs here at Dearborn. One of those programs is the Mathematics Summer Bridge Program. This program is to help freshmen students placed in the MATH 080 and 090 courses to improve their math skills in order to improve their scores on the math placement test. Students in this program will use ALEKS to study on their own and review, practice, and master a number of mathematical concepts. The professor behind this program is Joan Remski , professor and chair of the mathematics and statistics department at Dearborn. We interviewed her to get her perspective on ALEKS and the benefits and drawbacks of this technology based on her experience with it.

According to Prof. Remski, one of the drawbacks of ALEKS is the lack of connectivity between different math concepts. Students learn different concepts in math separately with ALEKS and there aren’t any exercises that help connect the dots for students. This is usually done by a teacher; thus, holistic learning might be hard to achieve with a technology like ALEKS. 

Take-away 

From our research, it seems that ALEKS is best used as a supplemental tool for an introductory math course. ALEKS could provide students with a great way to consolidate their learning and provide additional practice in order to master a topic. As Joan suggested, ALEKS may be used effectively as a diagnostic or placement tool, in addition to other teaching tools or methods that instructors may use. Another point to note is that with self-study programs like ALEKS, student motivation plays a factor in its success. Thus, it is important for the educator to consider this factor when choosing an adaptive technology like ALEKS. 

Photo by Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash