Pasco, WA

Pasco School District

Davina Ward-Pink and Chenyn Johnson, ATP Chairpersons

dpink@psd1.org, chjohnson@psd1.org

DreamBox Challenge – March Madness

DreamBox is an online program to help students learn math at their own speed and monitor their own progress. The Action Team for Partnerships (ATP) and math teachers at Markham Elementary School selected DreamBox to give students extra math practice. They created a game—a kind of March Madness—to encourage students to practice skills before they took state achievement tests at the end of the year. The game came with incentives. Students who completed 25 DreamBox lessons received soft serve ice cream. Those who completed 50 lessons enjoyed ice cream with one topping; 75 lessons earned two toppings; and 100 lessons or more came with unlimited toppings and a free 15-minute recess period. The treats were donated by community partners and families.

The ATP and teachers communicated with parents about the DreamBox Challenge with flyers, ClassDojo, SchoolDojo, and Facebook. Students were given tracking sheets to list the skills they completed over six weeks, including during the spring break. Parents were guided to encourage their children to complete DreamBox lessons and to celebrate students’ accomplishments.

DreamBox lessons cover major mathematical domains at each grade level. These include counting; comparisons & ordering; addition & subtraction; place value; measurement; multiplication & division; geometry; ratios & proportions; expressions & equations; and functions.

Students were in charge of their own progress. They had to decide how many skills to practice to earn their ice cream treats. Preliminary reviews suggested that students who completed many lessons increased their math scores on the spring Star Test, but more formal analyses of changes in scores from winter to spring of the year are in progress. Teachers want to know if students (and which students) increased their math skills if they used DreamBox exercises or not, and if they faced challenges such as not having access to computers with adequate internet connections.

Teachers invited parents and community members to come to school to celebrate with students who took the DreamBox Challenge. At the half-way mark, about 70 students were working on DreamBox lessons, but by the end of the time period about 200 students participated. These students and over 200 parents and other carers enjoyed their ice cream party.  Some students kept on because they found that math was fun, profitable, and tasty! Read more about DreamBox Challenge in Promising Partnership Practices 2023.