Figure 6.10: ALEKS Pie (Average Report)

The ALEKS Pie Report features a color-keyed pie chart showing the breakdown of student learning for the average of all students in the class, letting instructors see at a glance how well students are meeting the class goals. This report allows instructors to group students easily based on their prerequisite knowledge and to direct instruction according to what students are ready to learn (Fig. 6.10).

You can use the "Show" drop-down box to filter the report by "Current Learning," "Most Recent Assessment," or "Initial Assessment." The "Current Objective" title and the dotted lines on the pie chart are displayed only when "Current Learning" is selected and the class is set up with Intermediate/Chapter Objectives. Complete details on which topics students have mastered, not mastered, and are ready to learn in the class are available in the section below the pie chart and can be viewed by Objectives (if you are using Textbook Integration, Objectives, or Modules in the class) or by ALEKS Table of Contents (Sec. 6.3.2).

In either the ALEKS Table of Contents tab or the Objectives tab (when present), you can toggle between viewing and hiding topics. To preview a sample problem of a topic, click on the topic name. ALEKS generates a new instance of the problem each time you click on a topic name.

If you click on a percent link for a topic you will see a breakdown of student mastery for that topic. You can send a message to students directly from this report, and view additional topics that a group of students is ready to learn. The topics with the highest numbers of students "Ready To Learn" are the ones ripest for classroom presentation; trying to teach topics with low numbers in this display is more likely to produce boredom and frustration, because most students either have learned them already or are not yet ready for them (Sec. 8.5).

NOTE. Students who have not taken an Initial Assessment will not be shown in this report, but they will be shown in the Excel spreadsheet downloads. The Excel spreadsheet (sub-slice) download shows the number of topics each student has mastered and the number of topics they are ready to learn for each sub-slice of the ALEKS Pie. If Objectives or Modules are used in the class, a third download link will be available to "Download Excel Spreadsheet (Objective)."