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The goal of this efficacy project is to improve mathematics in middle school students
using an intelligent tutoring system called ALEKS (Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge
Spaces). The middle school students include 6th graders from the Jackson-Madison County
(Tennessee) School System who have low achievement in mathematics and who have volunteered
to participate in an afterschool mathematics tutoring program twice a week for two
hours each day. The 6th graders were randomly assigned to one of two types of instructional
classrooms. In the first condition, students interact with ALEKS in three 20-minute
blocks each day. Students assigned to the second instructional classroom condition
are taught by a human teacher during three 20-minute blocks in a traditional lecture
format, with breaks between blocks. Our first year is underway and will end in March
(2010) a week before the administration of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment
Program (TCAP).
ALEKS classrooms
Teacher classrooms
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| The J-MITSE project, which is short for Jackson-Madison Intelligent Tutoring System Evaluation project, is a federally funded project jointly run by the Jackson-Madison School System and the University of Memphis. The members of the JMITSE project are dedicated to helping to improve the mathematics skills of 6th grade students in the Jackson-Madison area by providing the highest quality afterschool program possible. |
| The need to improve mathematics education in the United States has been documented in several international and national studies. For example, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) reported that the performance of U.S. students in applied mathematical skills is not at the level of most of the 28 countries that participated. Although U.S. students possess many of basic mathematical skills, they lag behind their peers from other countries in their application of these skills to problems relating to space and shape, chance and relationships, quantity, and uncertainty. Results from national studies similarly demonstrate the need for mathematics improvement, particularly in the middle grades. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), for example, reported that the percentage of students at or above the “proficient” level in mathematics was highest in fourth grade, decreased in eighth grade, and was lowest in twelfth grade. |
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