ALEKS vs. Modern Hire (discontinued) vs. Renaissance Star Assessments

ALEKS does a great job of helping students fill in the gaps in their learning so that they have a solid foundation to move on to higher-level mathematics. It works very well with self-motivated students. It doesn't seem to work as well with less motivated students.

Incentivized

I've been a recruiter for more than 20 years, and I simply can't imagine working without Modern Hire at this point. Modern Hire has greatly increased my efficiency, leaving me more time to build relationships with candidates and hiring leaders. I can focus more on the consultative part of my position as opposed to spending time on administrative functions that Modern Hire easily handles.

Incentivized

Renaissance Star Assessments are great for students who already know English and know how to use a device, especially a tablet. The children can listen to the question, choose an answer, then move on to the next question. These assessments are less appropriate for students learning English as a second language. Since the questions are in English, and most students primarily speak another language, they do not understand the questions and get many of them wrong. As a result, they score low and it appears as if the child has not been learning when in fact the low score is due to a language barrier. I think there should also be some type of block to choosing an answer until after the question is presented because some children like to press answers before the question is finished and then try to move on. I think having the answers be unclickable before the question is finished would be a benefit for the children to pay more attention to the question.

• Differentiating instruction
• Tailoring individualized curriculum to cater to each student's unique needed.

Incentivized

• Allows prospective candidates to prepare for and submit recorded responses to established interview questions when it is most-convenient for their schedule (without having to take time off fro their current job, skip lunch, etc.).
• Modern Hire [formerly Montage] offers the ability to conduct both recorded and live video interviewing, allowing the flexibility to adopt whatever approach best fits the culture of the organization, the specific role, etc. We are finding that recorded interviews are terrific for initial or screening, and are great to then share with a hiring manager if there needs to be any calibration between s/he & HR/Talent Acquisition. The live interviews allow us to conduct interviews with candidates who may be applying from outside reasonable driving distance to the nearest Caravan Health office, while still providing an ability to observe important nonverbal cues of candidates.
• Customer support is strong, even offering a "concierge service" which is basically like having an extension of our IT department on the line/logged-in with us to ensure there are no technical issues during the interview.

Incentivized

• Renaissance Star Assessments gives me a look at each student as an overall reader.
• Renaissance Star Assessments shows me the areas of which my students are struggling.
• Renaissance Star Assessments is linked with Nearpod, so I can assign lessons based on what each student needs.
• Star CBM helps me see whether my students' fluency is improving or not.

Incentivized

• Reports can confuse students
• Limited ways to solve a problem
• Can lead to mimicry

Incentivized

• The customization of Modern Hire is minimal, hence, more challenging.
• The cost of Modern Hire is outrageous.
• Other recruitment and hiring options are credible.

Incentivized

• The graphs for each subject are not consistently the same. (ie. some graphs are by 5s and some are by 50s.) It's very confusing to read them.
• The questions are not rigorous enough for state standards.
• Different reports will show data that does not align. If 'state' is chosen, then all reports should show the same data. The Parent Report will show the child in 'green', but every sub-skill is in 'red'. That is super confusing for parents and teachers.
• All reports should be based on the same score, but they are not. It is like comparing apples to oranges on the same child.

Incentivized

Star Assessments and Renaissance is the best educational products at this time. They are found worldwide, easy to use and informational for districts teachers and families. Information will follow a student if they change districts and give previous information to new districts and teachers

Incentivized

It is very user friendly and intuitive. I have had minimal training on the system and was able to access many of the features. I was able to easily create student accounts and set up testing for our students. I was able to find appropriate reports that provide the right data for our team and our parents.

It’s wonderful

I absolutely love this program

Incentivized

We did not need much support because installing and running ALEKS on Schoology was relatively easy; the department followed the steps outlined in the user manual on how to install ALEKS and were able to do so quickly. ALEKS help team has been helpful, but overall we did not need their help.

Incentivized

I would revert to my previous answer where it has been an amazing support to our business speed, scalability, and support. My main concern has been data integrity which can affect and has affected our client relations.

Incentivized

I have been very happy with the support. By phone or email I have found the support very good and they get back to me quickly. This survey however is wa6 overdone, expecting me to come up with 50 words on each question. It becomes very repetitive and very laborious.

I just feel this way.

When presenters show us how to use the program they need to have a full class size of data. During training, there were only 5 or 6 sample students. Classes are more like 25 and that makes the training more realistic to have similar data to what we will use.

I was not able to find any other products on your list, that I feel are really like ALEKS. I think of ALEKS as more of a teaching platform whereas other platforms I have used--MyMathLab, WebAssign, Knewton--are more of a homework platform.

Incentivized

Modern Hire is comparable to all and [does not need] to [be] downloaded, [which adds] convenience. Modern Hire is our company-sponsored platform so I would not be able to select which platform the company uses.

Incentivized

Renaissance Star Math Assessment provided a proven data collection tool. This was also being used at the lower grades in our district, so it made sense to continue with its use to provide a more reliable and accurate picture of our students entering the middle school. The continuation of the data trail should continue to help their overall growth.

Incentivized

Great overall program with lots of advice in implementation

Incentivized

• Improved foundational math skills
• Improved student engagement in math courses

Incentivized

• Timing out of interview
• Dial in code does not always work, has said invalid at times
• Constant need to log into platform, times out too soon

Incentivized

• It has positively impacted student time to learn by reducing testing times and allowing more time for instruction
• The reduced testing time also positively impacted our schools by freeing the computer labs and making the planning and creation of testing schedules easier. This has allowed more computer lab use for education and learning.
• It has negatively impacted the time and effort required by support staff, administrators, and some teachers by requiring more time spent on looking up results or going to multiple spots and manually combining results because a larger group couldn't easily be made.
• Another negative impact on our district is that it has also taxed those few educators with more technical ability and data knowledge moreso than other programs. The need to create/summarize/write programs to deal with full, raw data export files since the smaller, more specific reports and summaries are not downloadable into a format that can be manipulated easily (pdf only, not csv exports), and to constantly back up data exports and to have to search through them when the State wants results on past students etc.