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For hundreds of incoming students at Dominican University, success in STEM starts long before the first day of class. Math serves as a gateway to many STEM disciplines—and students who are placed into developmental math courses often face a longer path toward earning their degree. As the Coordinator of Academic Success for STEM, Daniela Salgado helps ensure students begin that journey on the strongest possible footing. Through one-on-one math tutoring, academic coaching and first-year STEM programming, she works closely with students to build both the academic skills and confidence they need to succeed.
In recent years, Salgado and her colleagues noticed a growing number of incoming students placing into non-credit developmental math courses. To address this challenge, Dominican expanded its resources by offering the math placement review courses. In turn, this meant incoming students now had an opportunity to review foundational math concepts before taking the university’s placement exam. The goal wasn’t simply to improve placement scores—it was to help students enter college feeling prepared rather than intimidated by the academic expectations ahead. “Giving tools early on before they step into classes really helps them see where we’re going to be so they can best prepare themselves,” Salgado says.
Reaching hundreds of incoming students during the summer also presents its own challenge. Many don’t check their school emails during the summer. Plus, every student has a short window to prepare before orientation. Salgado needed a flexible, accessible way to help students rebuild foundational skills, reduce math anxiety and arrive on campus ready to succeed. It’s what eventually led her to Aktiv Math. Since emphasizing foundational math skills in tandem with the Aktiv Math Readiness module, Salgado has charted improved placement test scores across the board.
Aktiv Math became the foundation of Dominican’s mathematics placement testing process because it gave Salgado the flexibility to support students with very different levels of preparation. Each summer, approximately 200 to 300 incoming students use the platform to review before taking their placement exam. Rather than requiring every student to follow the same path, Salgado built the course so students can choose the approach that works best for them. “I’ve tried to create my course in a way that is flexible for students,” she says. “Some of them know what they need to review and just want a quick review. Others prefer the diagnostic…and yet others will work with me more hands-on in structured tutoring sessions.”
Students can begin with a diagnostic assessment aligned to Dominican’s placement objectives, which generates a personalized study plan based on their strengths and areas for improvement. Others skip directly into review assignments organized by topic, while students looking for additional support can schedule tutoring sessions with Salgado. Because the course is entirely asynchronous, students work at their own pace, focusing on the concepts most relevant to their needs before orientation.
Throughout the summer, Aktiv’s interactive learning experience helps students build understanding independently. An added benefit is that Salgado’s efforts, paired with Aktiv’s hands-on tools, allows students to understand the real-world relevance behind basic chemistry concepts. Immediate feedback, visual question types and step-by-step solution walkthroughs reinforce mathematical reasoning instead of memorization, while giving Salgado visibility into student progress so she can target misconceptions during tutoring sessions. “Having those solutions that show step-by-step what steps they needed to take is very helpful,” Salgado says. “It’s not just a list of problems where they work on it and figure it out on their own. Since it is so interactive, students really start to feel more confident because they’re learning the why.”
The impact of Dominican’s summer bridge program can be seen in students’ placement results. As part of her commitment to flexible and equitable learning, Salgado invites students to retake their mathematics placement test if they received an unsatisfactory score. Across the summers of 2023, 2024 and 2025, 73 percent of students who used Aktiv Math before retaking their placement test saw improved grades, compared with 62 percent of students who retook the test without Aktiv. Students who reviewed with Aktiv were 17 percent more likely to improve their placement and advanced by an average of two placement levels, allowing many to bypass developmental coursework and begin required STEM prerequisites sooner.
For Salgado, however, the most meaningful outcome is the confidence students gain before they ever walk into their first college classroom. By giving them a realistic picture of college-level expectations—and the tools to prepare for them—students arrive feeling more capable and motivated rather than discouraged by their placement results. Instead of viewing math as memorization, they begin to see it as a problem-solving process they can master with practice. “Our goal with all of our bridge programming is to get people into more of a problem-solving mode and feeling confident that they can do it.”
Aktiv Math is a complete math courseware solution featuring a library of assignable problems from Prealgebra through Precalculus. The Math Readiness module—included with Aktiv Math and available standalone—diagnoses and closes math prerequisite gaps during individual study. Math Readiness is designed to build foundational math skills for courses across STEM, nursing, business, statistics and others requiring quantitative reasoning. Both products are available to adopt by individual instructors, programs, and departments and can be used in online or in-person courses.
Daniela Salgado serves as the Coordinator of Academic Success for STEM at Dominican University. She provides one-on-one support for students through math content tutoring, academic coaching, and case management, and supports STEM programming for first-year students.
Senior Growth Marketing Specialist
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One of our Learning Specialists will give you a tour of the Aktiv Chemistry or Aktiv Mathematics learning platforms and provide a free instructor playground account with access to the content library.
One of our Learning Specialists will give you a tour of the Aktiv Chemistry learning platforms and provide a free instructor playground account with access to the content library.
