ALEKS, from McGraw Hill, is an innovative online learning platform with over 25m students. It harnesses advanced technology and superior subject content to create personalized experiences through AI-driven learning and assessment systems. ALEKS transforms education, empowering students to excel.
As part of McGraw Hill, ALEKS has a vision to transform education by providing the most advanced tech and highest quality experiences. Previously, ALEKS only addressed 3-12 grade and contained dry and uninspiring content. They needed help extending the platform into uncharted territory of K-3, re-imagining the student journey for a modern digital experience, and understanding age-specific motivations.
Approach
Three phases of work, spanning 16 months, brought the software experience to life. We conducted student/teacher interviews, built an imaginative concept to secure necessary funding, a foundational design system to scale across grade levels, an immersive scenario-driven world, empowering social and gaming layers, and hundreds of delightful characters and lands.
A new way of learning math -
Revolutionizing math education by creating scenario-driven narratives that make learning exciting and memorable. ALEKS students become explorers in their own math learning journey, while physical tools are reimagined for digital learning.
A visually stunning universe for ALEKS -
By designing a vibrant adventure-themed design for ALEKS, featuring interactive worlds and captivating characters, users explore hundreds of colorful lands across imaginative realms, encountering recurring characters throughout their learning journey.
Tapping into social & gaming motivators -
ALEKS provides an adventurous learning experience that promotes social connection and celebrates progress. Students enhance math fluency through re-playable mini-games, earning coins to unlock avatar and ship upgrades. With rewarding systems, social connections, and self-expression, engagement is encouraged throughout the school year.
A new way of learning math -
Revolutionizing math education by creating scenario-driven narratives that make learning exciting and memorable. ALEKS students become explorers in their own math learning journey, while physical tools are reimagined for digital learning.
A visually stunning universe for ALEKS -
By designing a vibrant adventure-themed design for ALEKS, featuring interactive worlds and captivating characters, users explore hundreds of colorful lands across imaginative realms, encountering recurring characters throughout their learning journey.
Tapping into social & gaming motivators -
ALEKS provides an adventurous learning experience that promotes social connection and celebrates progress. Students enhance math fluency through re-playable mini-games, earning coins to unlock avatar and ship upgrades. With rewarding systems, social connections, and self-expression, engagement is encouraged throughout the school year.
Outcome
The team brought an ambitious adventure-themed design concept to life, creating detailed and interactive prototypes for Kindergarten through 3rd grade. These prototypes showcased the student experience of learning and building math fluency, while also demonstrating how the product features could scale to meet the needs of elementary school students of all ages. The project's success was evident as the client secured internal funding for the ALEKS K-5 project during our partnership. Subsequent phases introduced gaming and socialization elements, sound enhancements, and a seamless transition to extend the visually captivating world of ALEKS to upper grade levels.
"Aleks Adventure is great independent practice. It's like having an extra teacher. It is very visual and highly engaging"
First Grade Teacher
First Grade Teacher
"It's fun! You have different levels where you can choose where you want to do, and the spaceship will move around"
Second Grade Teacher
Second Grade Teacher
"I just love [ALEKS Adventure]. This is exactly what they like: picking little animals, dragons, coins. It's perfect for second grade. They would totally beg me to [use] it."
First Grade Student
First Grade Student
"I liked how [my student] was able to find help on her own rather than just sitting there. It gave her the prompt but broke it down for her to understand it better."
Third Grade Teacher
Third Grade Teacher
