Pie charts express the results of a given assessment. They contain the following types of information:

• which topics are part of the syllabus;
• the relative importance of the parts of the syllabus; and
• to what extent the student has attained the knowledge for each part of the syllabus, according to the assessment.

Each color-coded slice of the pie chart refers to a particular part of the syllabus , such as "Whole Numbers" or "Proportions and Percents." Each slice is marked with an abbreviation. The meanings of these abbreviations and of the chart's color-coding are given in the legend immediately following the pie chart. If the abbreviation next to the slice is underlined, it means this topic contains concepts the student is most "ready to learn."

A pie chart will show only those topics that are part of the curriculum for the course indicated. The portion of the chart taken up by any one topic reflects the importance of that topic relative to others in the given syllabus.

The progress a student has made toward satisfying the syllabus for knowledge in a given topic is expressed by the degree to which the slice corresponding to that area is shaded (i.e., filled in with solid color). The measure of progress given by the pie charts is dependent on the standards for a particular course and is set by instructors and administrators (See Chapter 8).

When a user places the pointer over one of the slices of the pie charts, the slice pops out of the pie. A list of the items for that topic the student is currently best ready to learn will appear. Not every slice necessarily contains such a list, even if the topic has not yet been fully mastered. If the slice contains concepts, its label is underlined. This is because a student may not be ready to learn a concept in a given topic (slice) before concepts in another topic (slice) have been mastered. Clicking on any one of these concepts takes the user into the Learning Mode, beginning with that concept.