What is it?
ALEKS is an online adaptive math program.
According to their website it is a “Web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system. ALEKS uses adaptive questioning to quickly and accurately determine exactly what a student knows and doesn’t know in a course. ALEKS then instructs the student on the topics she is most ready to learn. As a student works through a course, ALEKS periodically reassesses the student to ensure that topics learned are also retained.”
How it works:
Basically it is a program that determines what a child knows based on how they answer the questions, and then adjusts the material it presents accordingly. ALEKS starts by having your student take a test to assess what they already know and what they still need to learn. It then marks a pie graph showing what needs to be worked on. The program presents material in a sequential fashion and gives students a handful of choices of what to cover next based on what they’ve mastered. For the topic they are learning it shows one sample problem with written explanations on how to do it. The student then has to get two to three problems correct in a row for the program to consider the topic learned. After a certain amount of topics are “learned” the program gives the student a test with one problem from each of the topics they’ve covered. If the get the question right the topic is considered mastered and if they get it wrong the topic goes back to needing to be learned again.
How we used it:
We started the year using ALEKS as a supplemental program to our main curriculum (Beast Academy). I was a math major in college (before switching to accounting) so making sure my son has a strong math foundation is important to me. It is a subject where gaps in learning get magnified and cause challenges quickly.
When my son took the initial placement test I was a bit surpried that it said he needed to go back and review 30% of the 3rd grade math topics (there are 95 total topics in the 3rd grade section), but I was glad it identified areas that needed a little more work. He was able to get the 3rd grade topics done in less than a month and move on to the 4th grade topics in October. Since this was not our main curriculum, we used the program rather sporadically and my son was still able to easily complete all of 4th grade in less than a year.
What I loved:
He could do it independently.
Most topics my son was able to learn on his own. When he didn’t understand a topic I jumped in to teach him, but most of the time he didn’t need my help.
It didn’t take much time.
Most lessons could be done in 5-10 minutes. I typically had my son do 3 lessons a day so that he spent about 30 minutes.
No busy work.
My son picks up on concepts pretty fast, and he hates having to do 3 pages of problems if he learned it with just a couple. This program assumes that if you can do two problems then you understand the concept and don’t need to keep doing the same thing over and over. For kids who want to learn it and move on, it is perfect!
I know there aren’t learning gaps.
With other programs I would teach a concept, but have no idea if he learned it well enough to be able to do it the following week. I love that this program asks them to solve an additional problem on a test down the road to make sure they really locked in the concept.
It is thorough.
By the time he finishes a grade I know that he really learned everything he was supposed to learn in that grade. Each grade covers more topics than the last (with many of the topics overlapping). By 5th grade there are 261 topics that they need to complete (with 258 optional topics that can be turned on by the parent/instructor).
Our Conclusion:
I LOVE this program. My son hates it. I’m not sure why he doesn’t like it, but I’m guessing it’s because there are no cute comic book monsters like he gets in Beast Academy. While I normally try to use curriculum he really likes, this one is so good that I make him do it anyway. It gives me the assurance that we’ve covered and learned everything we need to, and with just one lesson a day he only has to spend 5 minutes. We did discover that when he completed 4th grade it had him already having mastered over 50% of the 5th grade topics because there is so much overlap in the two grades. Since we have a year long subscription, he is going ahead and finishing the 5th grade math using the program over the summer. He only has to do one lesson a day and will be able to complete it by September. Then we will go back to Beast Academy for the next school year.
This program is great for kids who can do math independently and don’t like repetition. It would not be good for a kid who needs a lot of instruction. Really the only instruction it provides is a sample problem. For kids that need more thorough explanations, this might be a good supplemental product to test their comprehension after learning each topic with other curriculum. The program does go up though highschool, and I would love to come back to it down the road for higher level math.