DANTES Update: New Online Course for Basic Skills
Written by Victoria Street
MAE 2009 Volume: 4 Issue: 6 (November/December)
Thanks to a new partnership between the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES) and Peterson’s, assessing and improving academic skills has just become easier with direct access to the new Online Academic Skills Course (OASC). OASC is a free, interactive online course designed for individuals who want to build their math and verbal skills to excel in their jobs, pass their exams, advance their careers or continue their education. Servicemembers of all branches of the military, including Guard and reserve, and their family members, will have access to OASC through the DANTES Website, at www.dantes.doded.mil; each branch’s education Web portal; and MilitaryOneSource, at www.militaryonesource.com.
When first logging in to OASC, users are prompted to establish an account and begin their academic skill assessment by taking a “pre-test” that evaluates math abilities, reading comprehension and vocabulary.
Based on the results of the test, a “customized learning path” is built for each person to address their individual strengths and weaknesses, with quizzes and practice questions then used to assess progress. Each lesson consists of 20-minute segments with interactive audio flash cards to build vocabulary and math terms while engaging students in the learning process. Lessons include detailed descriptions of answer explanations, examples and quizzes to reinforce learning.
The program is self-paced, and those with less time to study can choose a shortened set of lessons. Depending on the needs of servicemembers and their families, OASC can be used in a classroom, through self-study or both methods in combination. With this flexibility, both users and administrators can measure progress, which is known to be a great motivator in the learning process. The more you feel you’re learning, the more you want to learn.
The time needed to complete the course varies based on the goals of each individual and the skill level each person begins the course with. OASC allows students the flexibility to complete as few or as many segments as they would like each time they log on, so they can complete the course at a pace that works best for them. On average, it takes 20 to 30 hours to complete the pre- and post-tests, all of the lessons in the full learning path and all of the quizzes and practice sets.
OASC delivers lessons with detailed instruction for a specific concept or skill. Each lesson includes interactive exercises (drag-and-drop matching, video game-style multiple choice, and virtual flash cards with audio) and practice questions with thorough explanations. To reinforce learning and continually assess progress on math and verbal concepts, the course is designed to have users apply their skills in a test-like setting. Users receive detailed analysis of their performance based on results of quizzes, practice sets of questions and flashcard games for vocabulary and math terms.
Based on data collected through various implementations and pilots of the OASC course, DANTES says it has seen impressive improvements in users’ skills. For example, the average score increase from the pre-test to the post-test in combined verbal and math scores hovers around 10 percent. User feedback has been very positive, indicating that students not only improve their math and verbal skills but feel more comfortable taking academic tests and gain confidence to help them along their education and career journeys.
An Air Force servicemember participating in the six-month pilot program said OASC helped him understand the concepts and formulas behind different algebra problems and feel more comfortable overall about math.
“Before this course, I had extreme math phobia,” the servicemember said. “After taking this course, working the problems and increasing my score, I feel 100 percent better about it.” ♦
Victoria Street is a training manager with DANTES.