Archive for the ‘Learning Research’ Category

Hello! This is Tiffany, the Creative Director at DreamBox Learning. Last week, myself and two other DreamBox employees attended a local conference called “Serious Play.” The conference included a 3-day track of presentations and speakers devoted entirely to games for learning, so that was our focus. At DreamBox, we don’t think of ourselves as making [...]

DreamBox Learning is excited to announce the release of a new Common Core State Standards report which allows educators a real-time view of individual student progress against the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). As students complete lessons in DreamBox, teachers can now access the Common Core State Standards Report directly from the DreamBox [...]

Our customers can attest to how DreamBox Learning’s math program has changed the lives of their students. Our intelligent adaptive learning program supports a broad range of learners, both struggling to advanced. And the greatest satisfaction comes from students feeling empowered and more confident in their math ability. With the latest study released by SRI [...]

The need to learn from the practices of highly effective teachers to help more students excel is one of the great challenges elementary educators face. Research has shown the effectiveness of formative assessment and formative instructional practices – it’s through this research that providing differentiated instruction has become the expectation in classrooms. Webinar: “How Formative [...]

There is a quote from Thomas Carruthers that I had for years attached to my e-mail signature. He said, “A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.” Just as teachers need to guide and shape learning for our students, we also need to embrace a shift in our locus of control to our students. [...]

As a teacher myself, one of the most challenging times of year is September (or even August for some teachers!) when everything is new. Teachers need to establish classroom routines, set high expectations for students, establish rapport with families, and get started on academics as soon as possible. For myself, the most important aspect of [...]

Gonzaga University recently conducted a study that focused on dropout prevention in middle school. The study suggests this early intervention provides “an early warning system for identifying potential dropouts, a bigger variety of academic opportunities and more rigor and additional funding for community-based social support programs”. (Read the full report, “Enhancing Middle School Student Experiences”). [...]

A fascinating recent study claims that if a female elementary teacher is anxious about math, chances are that her female students’ performance would suffer. Note that it doesn’t matter if she’s actually good or bad at math—it’s all about anxiety! This is interesting not only because 90% of US elementary math teachers are women, but [...]

In preschools today, math is too often ignored. “It’s fair to say the attention is almost entirely on reading and literacy, without recognizing the importance of math,” said Christopher T. Cross, who co-edited the report and chaired the committee that produced it. Children entering kindergarten need to be “ready” in math as well as reading, and research -- and my experience watching my own preschoolers -- shows that preschoolers are as curious and interested in numbers and counting and measuring as they are with everything else.

We've had a lively discussion in the DreamBox offices this week after someone circulated a recent Science Daily article "Self-regulation Game Predicts Kindergarten Achievement." The article describes early childhood development research (by Claire Ponitz from the University of Virginia and Megan McClelland of Oregon State University) that assessed the effectiveness of a game called the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) task. The researchers discovered that children who did well on this this simple, 5-minute self-regulation game in the fall achieved strong scores in reading, vocabulary, and math in the spring, compared to students who had low performance on the task. The research also showed that the children who performed well on the task scored 3.4 months better than their peers who performed at average levels on mathematics learning.