An online summer course for prospective international students to remediate deficiencies in Math prior knowledge: the case of ALEKS

Abstract

This paper is based on the experiences with remedial online learning from a national collaboration initiative of University of Amsterdam, Erasmus University and Maastricht University in the Netherlands, called 'Web- spijkeren' (http://www.web-spijkeren.nl/). This project, supported by grants for educational innovation of SURF, the Dutch higher education and research part- nership organisation for ICT, aims at developing electronic tests and tutorials for prospective students. Increased heterogeneity of prospective students causes study planning problems. Adaptive testing and remedial teaching might miti- gate these problems. The summer course described in this contribution is based on the tool ALEKS: Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces. Knowl- edge space theory is a branch of mathematical cognitive science that is espe- cially suitable in the design of adaptive diagnostic tests and tutorials for reme- dial learning in highly structured domains as mathematics. This contribution describes both the foundations of the tool ALEKS, and the usage of ALEKS in our summer course.