MATH 155 - ALEKS INFORMATION

Individual Sections, FALL 2012

(click on the name to see the instructor's office hours)

The course strongly builds on material from College Algebra. Further practice of these skills is developed via an online tutoring program: ALEKS, which is MANDATORY for all students. You are given an Initial Assessment to determine your strengths and weaknesses. The program uses artificial intelligence to provide tutoring solely in those topics needed in its Learning Mode.

The course is divided into several "Intermediate Objectives" with the early ones covering a review of material necessary for the class.

You need to begin work as soon as possible to ensure that the review material is learned in the first couple of weeks to give you the necessary skills for the class.

For most students an average of 4 hours per week spent on ALEKS should be adequate, although more time will probably be needed if your Initial Assessment is poor, or if you have a lot of topics to complete in order to meet an intermediate objective.

USING THE WEB:

• Do NOT access ALEKS from within Blackboard.
  

EVERYONE IS STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO PURCHASE ALEKS ONLINE AS DETAILED BELOW!

• However, some codes are available at the NIU Bookstore as part of a package.
• If you purchase from the bookstore, follow the instructions below under "Purchase Access Code & Register", but enter your Access code rather than purchasing another code.

REPEATING STUDENTS:

• DO NOT login to your old ALEKS account and extend it: Purchase a new Subscription.

PURCHASE ACCESS CODE & REGISTER:

• Click on the link below and enter the course code for your section found above; then follow the instructions to purchase ALEKS PreCalculus (18 weeks) from McGraw-Hill and to register with ALEKS.
  http://www.aleks.com/sign_up
  • carefully enter an e-mail address that you check regularly
  • note your Login Name and Password for ALEKS.
  • Problem? Contact McGraw-Hill at 1-877-833-5524.
  
  
• If you intend to use ALEKS on a PUBLIC COMPUTER or do not want to install a plugin:
  • Use http://www.aleks.com/plugin to access ALEKS
  
  
• If you intend to use ALEKS on your PERSONAL COMPUTER and are comfortable with installing plugins, then you can make ALEKS more efficient:
  • Use http://www.aleks.com to access ALEKS.
  • When you first login, ALEKS will attempt to install the ALEKS plugin which you should allow.
  
  
• CUSTOMER SUPPORT:
  • http://www.aleks.com/support

USING ALEKS:

• Initial Assessment to be completed by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 5 (but it is recommended that you start much earlier and have the Initial Assessment completed BEFORE this date, so you have plenty of time to complete Objective 1, due Monday, September 10):
  • When you first login to ALEKS you will be prompted to take the Initial Assessment to analyze your knowledge of College Algebra and PreCalculus.
  • It should take 1 -2 hours but can be completed over several logins.
  • Take it seriously and only answer "I don't know" if you really have no idea!
  • Your score is NOT your final ALEKS score but it will affect the amount of work you need to get a good final score. For example, answering "I don't know" to every question will mean that ALEKS will require you to work many problems from Intermediate Algebra!
  
  
• Learning Mode:
  • Following the presentation of assessment results, the system will display a pie chart navigation tool ("MyPie"). By placing the mouse pointer over slices of the pie, you can see which concepts you are now most ready to learn. Not all slices will contain concepts at any given time. They may have been mastered already, or work may need to be done in other slices before they become available. The concept you click on becomes your entry into the Learning Mode. Dotted lines show what you need to work on next, and the number of topics to be learned for the next Intermediate Objective is shown.
  • As you learn how to solve various problems, they will be TENTATIVELY added to your pie.
  • When several topics have been tentatively learned, you will get a new Progress Assessment to see if you have truly mastered the material.
  • If you remain logged in to ALEKS with minimal progress for extended periods then you may be given a Login Assessment. These should be avoided!
  
  
• The material is split into several Intermediate Objectives with due dates shown by clicking on the Gradebook icon in ALEKS.
  • #1 (Review and Ch. 3): 11:59 p.m. Monday, Sept. 10
  • #2 (Ch. 5): 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19
  • #3 (Ch. 6): 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 9
  • #4 (Ch. 7): 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17
  • #5 (Ch. 8): 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6
  • #6 (Ch. 9 and 11): 11:59 p.m. Friday, Dec. 7

FINAL ALEKS SCORE:

• Your Final score will be your Gradebook "Total Grade" as of Midnight Tuesday, December 11. Your final Aleks gradebook score, a percentage out of 100, will then be multiplied by 1.5, so that all scores are correctly scaled out of 150 points.

ALEKS bonuses:

• If your Initial Assessment is a perfect 100%, you will receive a 25 point bonus and are done with ALEKS.
• If your (Assessment + Learning) score reaches 100% you will be offered a "Goal Assessment".
• If you complete a Goal Assessment (or any other Assessment showing you have mastered all topics) with a perfect 100% by Midnight Tuesday, Dec. 11 , you will receive a 25 point bonus.

ALEKS Guide

• A guide is available; for further details click http://www.aleks.com/user_guides/learners-highedmath