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MTH 110: Prealgebra

Useful Information about ALEKS

ALEKS is the primary learning tool of this course. The ALEKS User's Guide (registration booklet) contains the information on how to login to ALEKS.   The directions in the registration booklet seem to work for students.  The missing piece of information is the 

course ID - which is HGMLU-NQHYR

It is expected that you spend a minimum of 5 hours per week working on problems from ALEKS. However, you may need to spend more time to complete the Pies in a timely manner. You must have access to the Internet to work on ALEKS.

You will begin with a tutorial on how to enter answers into ALEKS.  If at any time you forget how to enter something go to Help on the Menu Bar and click on the topic you need help on.

After you have finished the tutorial you will take an assessment.  You will pick what level you think you are.  It does not matter because the end result will be the same.  But the computer will figure out where to place you faster if you give it a good starting point.

ALEKS is a very different learning software than other available programs.

• You take an assessment and then it only gives you the problems to study that you missed on the assessment. So, you do not progress through the material at the same rate as anyone else.
• It also allows you to choose the order in which you learn material. After you complete your first assessment for Prealgebra 1 you will have your personal pie chart. It is divided into the main concepts of the course and within each pie you will know "something" - well, there might be a couple of pie slices that you haven't completed an objective in yet. You click on a pie slice and decide which objective(s) you want to learn that day.
• The theory behind ALEKS is that you have a learned set of knowledge and you are ready to learn the next ring of material around what you know. That means that not all objectives are available to you when you first start the course. As you complete objectives you will find that more material will be available to learn. You can figure out how you are doing by looking at the total number of objectives in each slice of the pie, or by looking at the dark or light shading of the section of the pie.

As you progress through the course ALEKS will request that you take an assessment. The assessment is a combination of ALEKS testing to be sure you have learned the problems you have completed and trying to find out where you actually are.  That is, if you are getting everything correct, ALEKS will start to give you problems you have not studied yet.  It is important that once you start an assessment you complete it or click on EXIT when you leave the assessment. The assessment will have 20-25 questions. If you quit partway through the assessment ALEKS reads it as though you don't remember the material and sends you back through objectives you have completed. The moral of this paragraph is - don't start an assessment unless you are going to have time to finish it or click on EXIT when you quit ALEKS!!

About the Menu Bar of ALEKS...