29 ALEKS for Math – How to Succeed
Kristel D. Phillips; Tianna Reneé Urrea MacMeans; and Hannah Noel Niccum
ALEKS is not an obstacle; it is the means to an end. It’s also an opportunity! You have the chance to increase your knowledge to get to your next math course with the knowledge that you will need for that course. It’s a lot, it can be frustrating, but you can succeed if you use the resources available to you and put the time in.
ALEKS is self-paced — you can go as fast or as slow as you need to. You have instructors and tutors in your math class as well as tutors in your UNIV 100 class, and you have drop-in tutoring at THINK TANK. You have video resources within ALEKS and even on YouTube via Khan Academy, among others. You will have enough time in your daily schedule if you use your Weekly Planner and plan out specific times you will work solely in ALEKS.
Tips for ALEKS
Be sure you do the “tutorial” for ALEKS. It will show you all of the major points of how to use the program. It’s tempting to skip the tutorial and simply go into the platform, but the tutorial will show you how to enter answers so you don’t miss them later. There are also tabs to help you navigate the platform along the way.
After the tutorial, you will take a proctored initial knowledge check where ALEKS figures out what you know and presents you with problems that will help you move further ahead.
Do ALEKS math topics daily. Doing ALEKS in small chunks is the best and most efficient way to learn. Why? Because your brain can absorb and retain the information that you are learning. Don’t cram math. If you do single sessions of 6 hours, you only learn and retain things in the first hour or so.
- If you get stuck, ask for help. If you are in class or tutoring, you can ask right away. If not, you can get online for online tutoring, or you can write down your question and what section it is from to ask later. Move on to another section of the pie until you can get that question answered, then immediately go back to it.
- For word problems:
- Always start by reading the math question audibly out loud and understanding what it is you are being asked to do.
- Next, draw a picture! Include the units in your picture so you don’t forget them.
- Take your time and write out every step of the problem so you don’t make mistakes on the easier parts of the math. If you do it in your head and make a mistake, you have no idea where it went wrong.
- Be sure to put the correct units on the answer (lbs, inches, feet^2, etc.)
Example
Bob has 135 flyers to pass out. On the first day, Bob passed out 1/3 of the flyers. The next day, Bob passed out 56 flyers. How many flyers remain to be passed out?
This is how I would do this problem and my thought process:
Ok, I have 135 F (I use the F to represent flyers, I might even just draw a rectangle to represent it, as it’s faster than writing it out)
I have to figure out what 1/3 of those flyers are, and then I have to add in 56 more flyers because ultimately, I have to find out how many flyers still need to be passed out
135F x 1/3 = 45F that were passed out
Then Bob passed out 56 more flyers, so 45+56 = 101F flyers were passed out total. But they want to know how many flyers remain, not how many were passed out. hmmm, how do I show that?
I’ll take the original 135 flyers, subtract the total of how many were passed out, and that will tell me how many flyers remain to be passed out. 135-101 = 34F remains to be passed out.
So, my answer is: 34 flyers still need to be passed out
3. Understand that learning math involves a lot of practice and mistakes. If you get something the first time, great! But you still need to secure it in your brain permanently so you can pull that information back out again for a different problem or the test, which takes practice. Mistakes happen, and it’s frustrating! Try to see it as another opportunity to conquer this particular concept. If you’re super frustrated, walk away, do something else for a short time, then come back to the problem with renewed interest in learning it. Consider going to tutoring or getting help from online tutoring as you begin again.
4. Using AI programs to help you with math is faster, but may cause you to fail MATH 100. You will get your homework completed, but you won’t have AI during the test, and you won’t be able to do the problems. It’s that simple. We will provide you with all the help you need if you will attend class and practice the things we show you. There are responsible ways to use online checking programs, but only if you won’t be tempted to check every time (which will also slow you way down!)
5. But why do they make you do so many more if you miss a question? The simple answer is, so you will learn it and retain the information. Practice is the best way to learn math, so don’t be afraid to get it wrong, but learn from your mistakes and keep going!
Growth Mindset In Math
Some people have a growth mindset, except when it comes to math. Sometimes people feel like they “can’t do math,” “will never get it,” “it’s heredity, my mom couldn’t do math either,” etc. However, none of this is true, and sometimes you have to fight your way to seeing it. What does a growth mindset look like for math?
- Working with a tutor as much as you need to
- Understanding you’re not “bad at math,” you have some areas that need more attention than others (you had a score for your initial knowledge check, so you do know some things!)
- Understanding that there is probably more than one way to do most math problems, if one way isn’t “clicking” for you, ask the instructor if there is another way to approach it. You might find that looking at it from another perspective helps you understand the first perspective better, or you’ll have a new way to tackle the problem.
- Being disappointed if you didn’t do as well as you wanted to on a test or an assignment, BUT going ahead (after a couple of hours’ break and maybe some chocolate) and working on math to move forward
- Identifying where things went wrong – be honest with yourself – look at time spent studying, study strategies used, etc. Try not to blame others, but honestly look at what you could have done differently:
-
- Maybe you need to learn more about how to deal with test anxiety or promote positive self-talk
- Maybe you need to spend more time doing math away from your phone/other distractions
- Maybe you need to go to tutoring more frequently
- Maybe you need better math discipline – slowing down and reading the question, deciphering what the question is asking, drawing a picture, then writing each step down, thinking about does the answer makes sense based on the info given?
- Make a plan for how to improve before the next time.
The most important thing is not to give up! Get some help! Try different strategies! Keep moving forward!
How This Class Can Help You Succeed
Each week, we will give you tips on how to understand ALEKS better, how to study better, and/or how to succeed in math. We will also play math games that will help you use the material that you are learning.
Great Resources for Math Help
- Your instructor and academic coach/TA in class
- THINK TANK TUTORING — online and in person, etc.
- Videos in ALEKS, videos in Khan Academy, or on YouTube
License & Attribution
Phillips, K. D., Urrea MacMeans, T. R., & Niccum, H. N. (Eds.). (2025). Steps to success: Strategies to help you succeed in MATH 100 and beyond, © 2025 Arizona Board of Regents, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, except where otherwise noted.
