In Summer 2025, we offered a summer calculus prep program for students identified by our undergraduate admission team as not yet meeting the criteria for placement in MATH 1551 (Calculus 1). We targeted students already engaged in summer bridge offerings: (1) Tech Promise Momentum Mentoring, a remote mentoring program offered in partnership with the Office of Scholar Programs, and (2) Challenge, a six-week immersive summer program offered through the Office of Student Achievement.
The program utilized ALEKS, a self-guided, online learning platform that adapts to a student’s current content knowledge, so most time is spent on the concepts where the most development is needed—making study time efficient and personalized. ALEKS was offered to students placed into Precalculus or College Algebra as of July 1 who were aiming to advance to Calculus I (MATH 1551). After successfully completing AELKS, students were encouraged to take the ACCUPLACER exam to potentially place directly into Calculus.
As a pilot, this year we focused on establishing the summer intervention. We aimed to recruit 25 students between Tech Promise and Challenge and establish reasonable baselines for success based on math placement and academic outcomes in math courses. Due to the low engagement, the baselines metrics are ill defined.
Nine Challenge students and 16 Tech Promise were identified for the ALEKS summer calculus preparation. Despite a multifaceted marketing plan, only 7 students enrolled in ALEKS. Of the 7 participants, 3 students never completed a module. Partners in the School of Mathematics selected 240 topics from the ALEKS inventory that were vital for precalculus mastery and predictors of success on the ACCUPLACER exam. The 4 engaged participants completed an average of 43% of the topics, and 2 students placed into Calculus 1 in Fall 2025 and 2 students placed into Precalculus.
We will assess the viability of using ALEKS as a summer intervention and consider ways to generate better student engagement.
As with our GT 1000 pilot, we worked to remove all barriers to student participation—the prep program was (1) remote, (2) no-cost to students, (3) imbedded into existing summer bridge programming, and (4) aligned to the ACCUPLACER exam schedule. However, student engagement is fickle with non-required academic support resources.
