Figure 6.25: Select Chapters

Textbook integration tailors the contents of the ALEKS class to the content of the textbook, so that some topics normally included in a given ALEKS course product may be omitted. Even though ALEKS allows relative freedom to determine the content of your class, be careful about making deep cuts to the content, as these may cause ALEKS to function incorrectly. Only minor adjustments should be made to the content once students have begun working, to avoid unexpected disruption of the students' work.

Ordering Chapters. ALEKS permits you to order the textbook chapters any way you like. You should, however, maintain a reasonable and conventional ordering of materials. The default ordering of chapters may be the best choice for a smooth ALEKS implementation.

After setting the order of chapters, assign the completion dates by clicking in the box under Due Date and choosing a date and time from the popup calendar. Note that the Start Date for the first Objective/chapter is always the start date for the class, which you set under Basic Information; the Start Date for any other Objective/Chapter is one minute after the Due Date of the previous Objective. Start Dates cannot be set manually, nor can Objectives overlap in the calendar.

On the basis of experience with many users, the ALEKS designers recommend that in most cases you choose to have the students assessed automatically upon completion of each Objective. This assessment will be triggered either by the student completing the Objective or when the deadline passes, whichever comes first; the rationale is that students will benefit from extra work on the material of the current Objective, especially if there is a quiz or test on the Objective. The reassessment will check their retention of recently-learned topics and require review as needed. If, on the other hand, they move immediately into the material of the next Objective upon completing the current one, they may not remember the current Objective material perfectly when taking the quiz or test.

If on the Initial Assessment a student assesses to a level indicating mastery of material beyond the first Objective, the student will still be given an Objective completion assessment on the chapter due date for the "latest" chapter "completed" in assessment. This will prevent students from having a long period of time without assessments.

An added benefit of a student completing a(n) Chapter/Objective completion assessment before the next one begins is that the pie chart will become unlocked. All topics in the pie chart will be available for the student to work on, provided they are ready to learn them, even if they are in a future Chapter/Objective. All, or nearly all, of the previously un-mastered items should also appear in the unlocked pie. The pie will remain unlocked until the current deadline expires, at which time the student's learning will be limited to topics in the next Chapter/Objective.

Note that this option does not affect the student's score for chapter completion in the Gradebook; if they finish the chapter ahead of time, they always have 100% for completion of that chapter, regardless of the results of their reassessment (Sec. 6.5.1).

You have the option to cancel (or restore) Objective completion assessments for each individual chapter/intermediate Objective when you create or edit them. By default, all Objectives will be created with completion assessments enabled. This will be indicated in the Objective editor screen by a small blue "A" in the right column next to the Objective name. When assessments are disabled for the Objective, the icon will disappear.