New Draper math program individualized for students
Draper Elementary students are embracing Dragon Training twice each month. It isn’t a chance to learn how to tame or slay a dragon, but rather a new math program geared at the level of each student enrolled in the school.
“It’s named Dragon Training because it gets kids excited about learning and they love it,” first-grade teacher Jody Anderson said about naming the program after the school mascot. “We’re approaching each topic as a way we can extend the core or slow it down so hopefully we catch every child and help them learn each concept.”
Dragon Training, which began earlier this fall, allows students to get extra support in a math concept that is specific to their individual needs, including Chinese dual immersion students. Each teacher signs up for a math concept that is being taught currently and then reviews data and teacher observations to decide where to assign their students, said Principal Kenna Sorensen.
“It’s an opportunity to reteach, review or enrich students on a concept,” Sorensen said. “We have had students from second grade working with students in third, fourth, fifth and sixth [grades] at the same time. To a second-grader, this is enrichment; to a fourth-grader, it might just be a review; and to a sixth-grader, it could be a reteaching a concept. It’s all done to meet students’ needs individually. The students love this and so do the teachers.”
On Dragon Training days, students move to the specified classroom where they will meet with possibly a different teacher and other students, as all students will be taught the same math skill at the same level.
It’s also an opportunity for teachers to be able to teach math at another level or lessons they learned in the math endorsement program that many Draper Elementary teachers earned in the past few years, Sorensen said.
In first grade, Anderson said the team meets together and those students are evaluated and placed back on, above or needing extra help on that grade level.
“We plan within our grade and see what abilities we have to challenge them and give them a positive experience,” she said. “The bulk of our students stay within the grade, but we can send a student up or down depending on the student’s individual level on that specific concept. We’re still tweaking the training, but this gives us the flexibility to teach students different ways and approaches to the concepts.”
Fifth-grade teacher Aimee Anderson said through Dragon Training, the school community has become closer.
“Kids of all ages throughout the building know my name and each other’s names,” Aimee Anderson said. “They’re making connections throughout the building and supporting each other. It’s neat to see.”
Sorensen agrees.
“Teachers are meeting more students, students feel more comfortable in all parts of the building; students are watching out for and helping other students in various grades that they may never have interacted with before,” she said. “The social impact is amazing, and the individualized instruction is what we are looking for.”
