What does it take to motivate a student to do every available lesson for grades 4-8 on the online math portal called “DreamBox?” We asked Jennifer Longnecker, a fourth grade math teacher at Linden Elementary School this question. How did her student, Zachary Ibanez, decide he wanted to tackle the full DreamBox curriculum content for grades 4-8? What Jennifer shared is the creation of a classroom culture of motivation for and celebration of success.
To drive students to do more math, it is important to instill a love of math, making connections to its importance in daily life and future careers. Ms. Longnecker’s approach was to create a culture based on individual and team motivation. Whole-class motivators included a DreamBox poster with running totals updated each day as well as creating a class goal for the school year. The goal the class set was to complete 15,000 lessons by the end of the year. Perhaps Zachary wanted to be sure to pull his weight in that hefty goal! Their class growth goal was 110%.
How did they do this? First, they took the DreamBox challenges including setting personal short-term goals, classroom, grade-level, school-wide, district-wide, and national goals. Jennifer’s students encouraged each other to reach these common goals. What really stood out, though were accounts of students who reached personal goals, and classmates responded in spontaneous celebration of each other’s successes, not simply their own or those of the team. In many venues, students compete against each other, but it is evident from this squad that success of one breeds success of the entire crew, and is aptly celebrated.
One poignant celebration is the one created during March Madness. As students completed lessons, they were placed in competitive brackets that culminated with all winners moving to the middle. Jennifer sprinkled students with glitter and confetti for every 100 lessons completed, took photos during this initiation rite, and displayed the celebrations on a bulletin board.
In keeping with an athletic theme, each student had a racecar with his or her name on it that moved around the room to show progress. Students shared authentically in each other’s accomplishments, as well as providing technical support and encouragement to reach their goals, creating an entire classroom of motivators.
DreamBox provided certificates for every grade level students completed. DreamBox Sprints are exercises that took 3-7 days, and students received seasonally appropriate prizes for every 20 lessons completed.
So how does Zachary’s Story fit in to all of this? As mentioned, he wanted to do his part to contribute to the goal of 15,000 lessons, and completed over 1,000 lessons on his own. This took him through the entirety of the content offered from DreamBox. Zachary recently took our district-level placement test for middle school math, and it was determined he is ready for 6th grade advanced math. This is especially notable because he entered 4th grade on level in math.
