Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


McGraw-Hill Education Launches Adaptive Math Placement Platform

McGraw-Hill Education launched the company's first adaptive math placement platform at the Educause 2013 conference in Anaheim. ALEKS Placement, Preparation, and Learning (ALEKS PPL) is an adaptive, open-response placement and remediation platform for higher education.

ALEKS PPL uses adaptive technology to assess students' knowledge and place them in the appropriate college math course for their level. Educational institutions have the option of offering ALEKS Placement tests online or on campus in a proctored environment. The tests use open-response questions rather than multiple-choice ones, which are less precise according to the company. The placement test determines students' mastery level of the subject and then offers an individualized six-week Prep and Learning module with periodic progress assessments.

According to Brian Kibby, president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education, fewer than 1 in 10 remedial students graduate from community college within three years, "and we know that inaccurate placement contributes to this problem," he said in a prepared statement. A 2012 report from Complete College America also found that more than 50 percent of students in two-year colleges and 20 percent in four-year universities are inaccurately placed in remedial courses. According to McGraw-Hill Education, ALEKS PPL helps reduce the amount of time students need to spend in remedial math courses and can even help some students bypass those courses entirely.

Key features of ALEKS Placement, Preparation, and Learning include:

  • Artificial intelligence designed to target individual student knowledge gaps;
  • Open-response, adaptive assessment covering hundreds of topics in 30 questions or less;
  • Transition from placement assessments to targeted learning modules;
  • Mastery-based learning; and
  • On- or off-campus online testing.

McGraw-Hill Education has also announced the availability of ALEKS Placement for first-year chemistry courses.

Further information about ALEKS Placement, Preparation, and Learning can be found at aleks.com.

About the Author

Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • digital data protection and cyber security

    White House Launches New AI Security Framework

    President Donald Trump has issued a new executive order aimed at maintaining United States AI leadership while addressing the security risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems.

  • woman

    Microsoft Discovery Platform Brings Agentic AI to Scientific Research

    Microsoft has moved its Discovery platform into general availability, calling the service a production-ready environment for scientists and researchers that want to apply AI agents.

  • A glowing digital brain with neural connections and light trails

    AI Giants Warn It May Be Time to Slow Down

    For years, leaders in the artificial intelligence industry have warned that increasingly capable AI systems could eventually become dangerous, all the while continuing to race to build them. Now, their sentiments have changed.

  • CIS Sandbox Tutor Eli Blouin at Bentley University imagines a future technology learning partner that supports curiosity, critical thinking, feedback, and personalized learning.

    Student Voices: Technology as a Future Learning Partner

    A data analytics and marketing major at Bentley University and a distinguished lecturer at the university explore the future of "technology learning partners" — technologies that participate in the learning process by asking questions and giving feedback, not just information search results.