T1 - Academic: Dreambox

Dreambox:
Dreambox is a math online curriculum designed to complement the school-’s math curriculum. It was created
with an adaptive learning technology that enables the seamless integration of instruction and assessment
before, during, and after each lesson. Individual, in-the-moment learning experiences are deeply personalized
for every type of student to provide the right next lesson, at the right level of difficulty, at the right time. The
Intelligent Adaptive Learning technology tracks each student interaction and evaluates the strategies used to
solve problems. It then immediately adjusts the lesson and the level of difficulty, scaffolding, sequencing,
number of hints, and pacing as appropriate. This allows students, whether struggling, at grade level, or
advanced, to progress at a pace that best benefits them and deepen conceptual understanding.

Intervention:
The school where I was interning at implemented the Dreambox curriculum this year for the first time.
Teachers were trained on the curriculum and on how to implement it before the year began. Although
dreambox’s platform shows statistics and data on a variety of measures (e.g. usage, progress, mastery of
grade-level-standards, etc.), for the purpose of this intervention I decided to look at the progress in the
mathematics 3rd grade standards for the three different classrooms at the school.

SMART Goal:
In 8 instructional weeks, students in each of the third grade classrooms at NAME elementary will average an
improvement in their mastery of 3rd grade standards of at least 20% * . Progress will be measured by the
school psychology intern each week.

To determine whether the intervention worked, the GAS is shown below:

GAS

+2 (Best Possible Outcome; Much Improved) Each of the three classrooms

achieved an improvement of at least 20% in the 3rd grade
standards.

+1 At least one of the three classrooms achieved an improvement

from 10-20%. The rest of the classrooms had an improvement of
at least 10%.

0 (No Change in Behavior; Baseline) At least one of the classrooms had

an improvement of at least 10%. The rest of the classrooms had an
improvement of at least 5%.

-1 At least one of the classrooms had an improvement ranging from

5-10%. The rest of the classrooms had improvement in the 0-5%
range.

-2 (Worst Possible Outcome; Much Worse): All of the classroom's

improvement was in the 0-5% range.

*The number (20% progress) was attained by determining that 8 weeks = ~20% of the total amount of
instructional weeks, 36 weeks. Therefore, assuming that students were expected to have a mastery of 3rd
grade standards of 0% at the beginning of the school year and a level of mastery of 100% at the end of the
school year, the progress expected for a period of 8 weeks was 20%.

Progress-Monitoring data:
The chart below illustrates the progress-monitoring data. The vertical axis represents the percent of mastery
in 3rd grade standards for mathematics. It has three lines: each one representing the progress for one of the
three specific classrooms. The horizontal axis represents the dates at which progress was monitored, which
was done by noting the percent of mastery each 3rd grade classroom averaged.

The yellow line represents the progress from students whose room teacher left on maternity leave before
winter break. A substitute teacher took over her classroom for the remainder of the year, and had to be
trained on Dreambox as the first trimester was happening. The average for that classroom appears to be lower
and progress to be slower for that reason. On 12/06/21, after tracking the progress (or lack thereof) from
that class for a variety of weeks, I talked to the school’s principal and sub-principal about it. They informed
me about the change in teachers and together we looked at the data from the Dreambox platform. We
realized that overall, students in that class were not meeting the expected amount of usage and completed
fewer lessons per week than the other 3rd grade students. We addressed the issue with the new teacher, and
asked him to ensure that students were using Dreambox’s platform. After 1/17/22, the students were
meeting at least the minimum number of lessons expected, and the classroom began to show improvement in
meeting 3rd grade Oregon math standards.

EVALUATION:
Students’ baseline was measured for 3 weeks, the average classroom baseline level of 3rd grade standards’
mastery was the following:

TEACHER % OF MASTERY AT
BASLEINE

Alex 24.3%

Randolph 40%

Stacey 28.3%

The final average classroom level of 3rd grade standards’ mastery, as well as the difference between the
baseline and end scores, was the following:
*Difference is color-coded based on the GAS*

TEACHER % OF MASTERY AT THE DIFFERENCE

END OF 8 WEEKS (End - Baseline scores)

Alex 56% 31.7%

Randolph 68% 28%

Stacey & Sub 40% 11.7%

CONCLUSION:
At the end of the intervention period of 8 instructional weeks, two of the three classrooms achieved at least a
20% improvement in their mathematics third grade standard mastery. One of the three classrooms improved
at least 10%. The GAS indicated that in order to get a score of +2 (highest score in GAS), students in each of
the three classrooms had to improve at least 20% in their 3rd grade mathematics standards. Therefore, the
overall score for the intervention - as determined by the GAS - was a +1.