AI, data analytics, and math technology combine to provide targeted support for students in math and math-based courses.
WATERLOO, Canada; Nov 8, 2024 -Maplesoft today announced a major new initiative to improve retention rates, protect tuition revenues, boost student readiness, and ensure more students are successful in their chosen fields. The Student Success Platform brings world-renowned math technology from Maplesoft together with AI, data analytics, and human expertise to provide targeted assistance to math students that they can access when they are working on their own.
Success in Math Matters
Post-secondary education is crucial to the long-term success of today’s students, but retention data shows that significant numbers of students are not completing their programs, especially in STEM fields. Even in non-STEM programs, such as business, economics, or psychology, struggles with gateway math courses are contributing to low retention rates.
In addition to the serious, long-lasting impact dropping out has on students’ lives, there is also a significant financial impact on the institutions when students leave. The loss of tuition and funding when a student does not return harms the school’s ability to provide resources and opportunities to others, ultimately affecting the entire student body.
“Studies show that final grades in first year math courses are a critical factor that influences dropout rates,” said Dr. Laurent Bernardin, president and CEO of Maplesoft. “Even if the student gets through first year, they are still at risk in upper years when their courses build on mathematical foundations that they didn’t fully understand. The conclusion is clear: If the institution can help more first year students succeed in their math courses, more students will ultimately reach graduation.”
The new Student Success Platform is specially designed to help students be successful in their math courses. It consists of three interconnected components that work together to ensure the students get the help they need, when they need it.
- The Maple Calculator App helps students learn, not cheat. Students use the Maple Calculator mobile app while working on homework and assignments and while studying for tests. The app allows them to quickly visualize problems, check solutions, identify mistakes, and practice with similar problems.
- The Analysis Hub determines and responds to students’ needs. The Analysis Hub analyzes the students’ Maple Calculator usage. The data, which is collected for the class as a whole and does not track individual student activity, is used to identify areas of struggle. When available, the Analysis Hub also takes into account optional feedback from instructors and teaching assistants, and optional course information from the LMS, such as course outlines and learning objectives. This information is used to determine suitable resources for those students based on their identified needs. The Analysis Hub then combines human expertise and AI tools to develop appropriate content to address those needs.
- The Targeted Resources supplied by the Analysis Hub are tailored to the needs to that specific class. These rich, interactive learning resources encourage productive struggle and active exploration, and help students bridge learning gaps, address readiness issues, clarify their understanding, and practise what they have learned.
Schools also get full access to Maple and Maple Learn for the instructors and students in these courses.
“The data-based decision making ensures resource recommendations are appropriate, helpful, and aligned with the instructor’s guidelines and timelines, so students don’t waste time sorting through resources they don’t need,” says Karishma Punwani, director Product Management at Maplesoft. “In addition, unlike when students use other apps or websites to help them with their homework, instructors get visibility into how their students are using the Maple Calculator and Targeted Resources, at the class level, and can see where they are struggling.”
The Student Success Platform does not require time commitments from busy instructors. “When an institution adopts the Student Success Platform, each instructor can choose how much, or how little, they wish to engage with it in their own courses. No matter what they choose, their students still benefit,” says Punwani.
For more information, visit maplesoft.com/student-success-platform.
