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Software Boosts Math Success Rates at Black Hills State U
4/25/2007
ALEKS also saves time by eliminating homework collecting and grading chores.
"It's doing a wonderful job managing this for us," Hagerty says.
Black Hills is in the progress of developing a textbook that can be used in conjunction with ALEKS for teaching college algebra; when that's complete, it may be offered to other colleges and universities that want to combine ALEKS with a specific textbook.
The university has also developed basic, intermediate and advanced online math courses through ALEKS that can be offered as standalone courses.
Because ALEKS tracks student progress so closely, studying its effect is relatively easy. In a 2002 study at Black Hills, ALEKS was used to replace traditional homework assignments in a college algebra course covering 251 students. Four sections of the course used ALEKS; four sections were taught in a traditional manner as a control group.
In gains measured before and after the course, three of the four ALEKS sections dramatically outperformed the control groups. Measured 14 months later, ALEKS students had retained their advantage and outperformed the non-ALEKS control group.
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Linda L. Briggs is a freelance writer based in San Diego, Calif.
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