The DreamBox Learning Blog

Calling all math fans! DreamBox Learning is excited to announce our new Facebook Math Learning web address. Our page is officially www.Facebook.com/Math.Learning. To celebrate the release of our new Math Learning address, we’re having a launch party. OK, so it’s a virtual party and we don’t have much to offer in terms of snacks, but [...]

Every child dreams big. Kids want to be sculptures, veterinarians, zoo keepers, pilots, baseball players, dancers -- kids are only limited by their imaginations! As parents and teachers, our job is to give kids the tools they need to realize these dreams. Math learning is one of those tools, as shown by our list of 7 cool jobs that require math.

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.

As I’ve said here before, I’m fascinated by how artists put math to work. Part of this interest stems from my own experience as the daughter of an engineer who majored in art; and part from hearing my son say something to the effect of “why do I need to take math – I’m going to be an artist/animator/cartoonist/you get the idea.”

While you're lighting fireworks, grilling burgers, and waving the flag on the 4th of July, don't ignore the math history lessons. We know -- many people think the words "summer" and "math" go together like ice cream on hot dogs. But the fourth of July presents a wonderful opportunity to teach your children about amazing American mathematicians.

I continue to marvel at the power of the Web and the way it has completely transformed how we transact business and conduct our lives. We connect and communicate, we buy and we use content (books, music, movies, information, etc.) in completely new ways. In that brief second after you click the mouse, just consider how personalized and targeted the response is to your purchase on Amazon, music selection on iTunes, flight scheduling on Expedia, restaurant reviews on Yelp, friend connections on Facebook, and searches on Google.

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.

School's out for the summer....School's out forever! Those words filled us with glee as children, but for busy parents "summer vacation," is an oxymoron. When the last bell rings, our schedules become even more difficult to juggle! And, along with all the summer activities we're planning, we want to make sure kids have plenty of opportunities to learn, and avoid the "summer slide"!

The genesis of how DreamBox does assessment, and one of the reasons I am with the company, occurred over 30 years ago when one of my relatives was diagnosed with a learning disability.

This surprised us and shocked his teachers, who considered him to be in the upper middle to top third of the class for math. His test scores consistently supported this. In many areas he was significantly ahead of his peers. Yet a detailed examination with an expert showed that for him division just didn't compute. Put another way, his brain simply wasn't "wired for division".

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, we celebrate 10 great teachers from the past and present.