Adaptive Courseware for Early Success Case Study: University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

The Adaptive Courseware for Early Success (ACES) Initiative was a grant-funded initiative supported through the Every Learner Everywhere network. In total, thirteen colleges and universities from Ohio, Texas, and Florida participated in this initiative from 2019 through 2021. Six 4-year universities, which are members of the Association of Public Land-grant Universities (APLU) received direct guidance and support from the Personalized Learning Consortium (PLC), located in the Office of Digital Transformation for Student Success (DTSS).

The goals of ACES were:

• To redesign critical gateway courses taught by faculty committed to integrating equity-centered, evidence-based teaching practices that are enhanced by adaptive courseware
• To create more equitable student outcomes by improving learning and educational experiences for poverty-impacted students, racially minoritized students, and first-generation students

Over the course of two and a half years, the PLC provided intensive coaching, peer-mentorship, collaborative learning and networking opportunities, and educational resources and training to cross-functional, institutional teams at select institutions. These institutions received further support and benefits from the Every Learner network partners, including Achieving the Dream and Digital Promise who offered collaborative learning with participating two-year institutions and program evaluation support, respectively.

Building upon previous course redesign efforts in mathematics, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley brought mathematics and statistics faculty from multiple campuses together to strategically align their efforts to effectively integrate adaptive courseware in Elementary Statistics and College Algebra courses. An active faculty community approach was employed to align instructional practices and eliminate unnecessary course content that was overburdening students. Faculty professional development and undergraduate teaching assistants were further integrated to improve applications of dashboard analytics to further support student learning.