ASU + Knewton on campus

With more than 70,000 students enrolled in 2010, Arizona State University is the largest public university in the United States.

The Problem

As a research university committed to providing access to education for all, ASU was strained by the large number of enrolled students who were not college-ready in mathematics, an area found to be a key predictor of university success. Persistence for students earning an A, B, or C in developmental math was more than 50% higher than those receiving a D, E, or W—underlining the high correlation between developmental math success and overall success. However, more than 30% of students failed to receive a C or higher in the course.

The Solution

ASU students who are not college-ready in mathematics are now remediated with a self-paced, online developmental math course powered by the Knewton Adaptive Learning Platform™, which transforms educational content to uniquely personalize the individual learning experience. The platform continually assesses, remediates, and re-assesses student progress, at a precise level, for every concept taught in the course. As students continue through the course, they are provided with content that addresses their individual proficiency gaps.

How it Works

Students work through the Knewton Math Readiness course at their own pace. The course, which is aligned with the Common Core Standards for Mathematics, continually assesses students’ mathematical proficiency and adapts accordingly, presenting each student with a personal learning path.

Students progress through the course by completing diagnostic exams. Depending on their performance on these tests, they either pass out or place into a given lesson. Lessons contain multiple learning items or “activities,” which are designed to be short, engaging, and full of real-world examples.

The ultimate goal of the course is to complete the requisite number of lessons at a certain performance standard for each subject. As students progress, they earn points and badges for every subject completed. These incentives, along with other game mechanics, keep students engaged and motivated to keep working. A student is considered to have completed the course once he or she has earned every subject badge.

Knewton Math Readiness also features a rich reporting interface, providing instructors and tutors access to a plethora of student data. Instructors can view class lists to see which students are on or off track, or they can search for individual student performance metrics. Instructors can also view trends across an entire group of students to determine if there are particular concepts that are problematic across the board. The reporting interface also functions as a class management tool, enabling instructors to optimize class time by focusing lessons around exactly those concepts with which students need the most help .

The Outcome

After one semester of use with over 5,000 remedial math students at ASU, withdrawal rates dropped by 50% and pass rates went from 66% to 75%. Half the class finished 4 weeks early. Read more in Forbes.