The features of the Instructor Module make it possible to prepare students for specific topics that they are going to work on, and to reinforce and expand on knowledge that students have recently acquired. This involves either guiding lectures or focused instruction to small groups of students based on data obtained from ALEKS. From the instructor's viewpoint, these are powerful features of ALEKS, and their use constitutes a proactive integration of ALEKS with the course structure.

The two kinds of "teaching opportunities" cued by ALEKS come from two types of information maintained by the system for students over the entire time that they use it: the set of items a student is "ready to learn" (or "outer fringe" of the student's knowledge state), and the set of items most recently learned ("what students can do," the "highest" topics in the student's knowledge state, called the "inner fringe") (See the Instructor's Manual under "Inner and Outer Fringes of a Knowledge State," in the chapter "Knowledge Spaces and the Theory Behind ALEKS"). The items "ready to learn" are the topics a student may normally choose to work on in ALEKS; the items recently learned ("what a student can do") are considered the least secure and most likely to need review or reinforcement. (These items may be made available for review by clicking "Review.") When the students are logged on to ALEKS these two kinds of information are used automatically to guide and manage their learning. The instructor, however, can also view the inner and outer fringes in a convenient format to plan focused instruction that will parallel, supplement, and enhance the individual work that their students are doing in ALEKS.

To find this information for a course, the instructor should enter the Instructor Module and click "Reporting," the name of the course, then "Average report (pie chart)." The piechart in Average report represents the average student in the given course, and displays the weaknesses and strengths of the course as a whole. To see the outer and inner fringes of the group we need to use options from the "Display mode" menu: "Ready to learn," and "What students can do."

Suppose we choose the option "Ready to learn (learning)" from the menu "Display Mode." This will summarize the topics that all of the students in the course are currently ready to learn; the parenthesis "(learning)" indicates that the information is based on their most recent work in the Learning Mode, and so completely current. For each topic the number of students ready to learn that topic appears to the right (e.g., "12 students"); clicking on that phrase displays the students' names, whereas clicking on "Open All" displays all the students' names for all of the topics. For each topic-list, there is a link to send a message to precisely those students. The purpose of this analysis is that the instructor may pick one or more topics from the list and schedule small-group sessions preparing the named students to learn them more effectively.

Now suppose we choose "What students can do (learning)" from the menu "Display Mode." Another list of topics will be produced; the students listed for these topics, however, are those who have recently worked on and, at least tentatively, learned the topics. Thus, the instructor can schedule focused sessions with these groups of students to reinforce or expand on material that is fresh in the students' minds, on which they are likely to have the most questions and ideas.

This gives the instructor the possibility of always teaching to students who are ideally prepared. It suggests a mode of teaching to the moment of opportunity, and generalizes individual learning to small groups of learners at specific times; obviously, the data obtained for this purpose from ALEKS on one day will be of considerably less value if used a week later.

It may be useful to look at some examples illustrating how these features may be used. If you have not used the ALEKS Instructor Module extensively, it will make more sense as you have more experience using ALEKS as a teaching tool.

Example 1: Basic

On a Friday evening, the instructor sits down to plan lessons for the following week. He or she logs onto ALEKS, selects the reporting feature and the name of a course in Basic Math, and clicks "Average Report." A pie chart appears showing the average profile of mastery in the course. The "slice" of the pie chart for Whole Numbers is full to about 90 percent; the slices for Fractions, Decimals, and Proportions and Percents are filled much less, ranging between 20 and 40 percent. This indicates that lessons for the week may focus profitably on the most advanced Whole Numbers topics as well as on topics of moderate difficulty in Fractions, Decimals, and Proportions and Percents.

Example 2: Intermediate

On a weekend afternoon, the instructor logs on to ALEKS, clicks "Reporting," then the name of a course in Basic Math, and then "Average report (pie chart)." After a look at the pie chart, the instructor selects "Ready to learn (learning)" from the "Display Mode" menu, and clicks "OK." When the list of topics appears, the instructor scans this list for items of particular difficulty. There it is! "Ordering Numbers with Exponents" has 16 students currently able to choose this topic from their pie charts. The instructor notes this topic down for class discussion early in the week. With the benefit of some timely preparation, the students can be expected to master this troublesome topic with little or no difficulty.

Example 3: Advanced

On a Monday morning, the instructor logs on to his or her ALEKS account, clicks "Reporting," then the name of a course in Beginning Algebra, and then "Average report (pie chart)." Following this the instructor switches, first, to the option for "Ready to learn (learning)" and clicks the ALEKS Print button. Even if "Open All" was not clicked the page will be displayed with all lists of students' names displayed. Then, the instructor switches to the option for "What students can do (learning)," and, again, clicks the Print button. With these two printouts in hand, the experience and expertise of the instructor are used to used to plan with this information. Suppose that there is only time in the week's schedule for two small-group sessions. (The ALEKS class has only one hour in the lab, and ten minutes are set aside to speak with each small group; the remaining 40 minutes are for helping students in the lab.) The instructor will look over the topics with two questions in mind: which topics have the greatest numbers of students, and which are pedagogically most worth discussing. For example, looking at the list of topics "Ready to learn," the instructor sees "Solving a Linear Equation with Absolute Value: Problem Type 1." The instructor knows from experience that students have difficulty with the concept, and that they are more successful with it if they have had a chance to review. This topic has 12 students out of 30 in the class. The instructor uses the message feature to send a note to these students, asking them to meet in the front of the room at the beginning of the lab; the students will receive this note the next time they log on to ALEKS, no later than the beginning of that lab. Looking over the list of topics "What students can do," the instructor sees "Marking a point in the coordinate plane," with 10 students. Although the number of students is less than for other topics, this one seems to the instructor richer in its content of mathematical culture than the others. Students who have just worked on this topic are using the coordinate plane for the first time, and they are ripe for an introduction to the vast areas of mathematical thought for which it opens the door. Thus this is chosen as the second topic, and a second message is sent to these students, to meet at the front of the room, ten minutes into the lab.