An average student today can be struggling with a lot of things– from trying to keep a balance between staying safe and maintaining a normal life, to feeling scared, depressed, and worried about his future, to feeling a bit lost and angry. It’s worth pondering upon the ways to support them through the pandemic and how instructors can best educate their students during these tough times.

The content of this blog has been extracted from the webinar conducted by Robert Feldman, where he shared the challenges faced by students in the pandemic, learning science and how instructors can use technologies such as Connect® to teach online. You can watch the webinar here.

How can an instructor implement ALEKS® in the classroom?

There is no one way of doing this – the instructor has the flexibility to decide. Below are a few ways where an instructor can use ALEKS:

• Homework – The experience will be different from the traditional homework pattern as ALEKS uses adaptive learning technology.
• Pre-lecture assignments – If the instructor wants the students to read or prepare something before coming to the lectures, ALEKS can be used.
• Open pie mode – The instructor can share all the course topics with the students and let them do it on their own. Some may prefer this approach while others may not.
• Course Prep/review – ALEKS can be used when the instructor wants to assess what knowledge the students have got or what they’ve already learnt in the past.
• Fundamental Knowledge – Understanding some basic principles about the course can be assessed through ALEKS.

Lectures are usually delivered to a heterogeneous group of students coming from all walks of life whereas the assessment is conducted at a homogenous level where all students get a similar set of questions and are assessed based on the same parameters. But the good part is that the instructors have control over this disparity which can be tactfully managed by them. But the one thing that the instructors do not have control over is the learning - it’s an individualised experience of each student. Therefore, the biggest challenge for instructors is deciding how best to get their students to learn.

The instructors play a vital role in teaching, and they are the subject matter experts. But many times, instructors have shown interest in using some tool that can supplement their teaching material and facilitate a good learning experience for the students. And this is where ALEKS®, a digital learning and assessment platform, comes into the picture. It can not only address a major challenge of the instructors by providing a personalised learning experience to the students but also help them create "A classroom of one".