Access Links
Practice Assessments: To get to the practice gateways or masteries for courses offering gateways (usually, math 105, 115, 116, 214, 215, and 217), go to the instructional technology page, and click the "Masteries" or "Gateway" link for the course in the "Students' Info" section.
Proctored Gateway Tests: Go to the Gateway labs (East Hall B069/722/723/727). The lab's hours are, for regular (fall/winter) semesters:
| Day | Hours | |||
| Mon | 11AM–10PM | |||
| Tue | 11AM–10PM | |||
| Wed | 11AM–10PM | |||
| Thu | 11AM–10PM | |||
| Fri | 11AM–4PM | |||
| Sun | 4PM–10PM |
For the spring and summer terms, we have a truncated schedule; see this calendar for times.
Instructors' Pages: Ma105; Ma115; Ma116; Ma214; Ma215; Ma217
Mastery Assessments and Gateway Testing
Mastery Assessment, as we are defining it, is a formative assessment of student learning: the goal is for students to learn, and to understand what they know, by working the assessments. Accordingly, these are assessments that may be repeated until the student demonstrates mastery, and may be practiced as much as needed before taking them for credit in one of our proctored labs. We now have mastery assessments in many courses, and are using them to evaluate students' understanding of most of the content of those courses.
Gateway Tests are our original incarnation of this type of assessment. They were formative assessment instruments that provide for students' acquisition of skills that are prerequisite, or requisite, to our Precalculus, Calculus I and Calculus II courses. All of these courses are reformed, with a primary emphasis on conceptual understanding. Gateway tests are short (7-10 question), tests of basic skills (e.g., differentiation in Calculus I or integration in Calculus II) that must be completed with very few (1-2) errors. Our on-line testing system allows students to practice the tests arbitrarily many times; for a grade, they must pass the test in a proctored computer lab during an approximately two-week window.
A good description of the gateway testing system is the subject of this blog post. We hope to have an update that speaks to the mastery assessment as well.
Logistical details: Students may practice the tests from anywhere, as many times as they like. They make take the test for credit up to twice per day, and students are encouraged to use the Math Lab to work out what they did wrong and how to do better next time.
Original Implementation of our on-line system was supported by an NSF DUE grant, #DUE-0088264. We describe our implementation and assessment of the system in the blog post noted above, and in a PRIMUS article, Implementation and Assessment of On-line Gateway Testing (PRIMUS XIII(4):289-307 (2003)).
To obtain or get information about our gateway testbanks, contact math-itc(at)umich(dot)edu .
UM Math Gateways