Teachers and administrators at two Dallas ISD campuses are deploying hands-on learning techniques with the help of LEGO playsets to help bolster math competency.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Dallas ISD — the second-biggest school system in Texas — has been struggling with providing its students with a quality education, clocking low performance metrics for years.
Dallas ISD’s student achievement outcomes were considerably below statewide averages during the 2021-2022 school year. Only 41% of students scored at grade level on their STAAR exams, and only 81.1% of the graduating Class of 2022 earned a diploma in four years despite the hard work of the system’s dedicated educators.
Still, teachers at James S. Hogg Elementary School and New Tech High School at B.F. Darrell are looking to turn things around when it comes to math by using LEGOs to “bring abstract concepts to life.”
“We devised a curriculum that integrates LEGOs into core learning, and we’ve got the data to show that it works. It’s not an after-school program or a fun thing to do after class. It’s what my students do every single day,” said New Tech High School math teacher Joe Jenkins, according to a district news release.
“LEGO is not just for students who are seeking to extend their learning or apply their imagination and dream big. It’s also for students who need foundational support in mathematics — the students who need it most,” Jenkins added.
Looking specifically at math STAAR scores during the 2021-2022 school year, only 39% of students scored at grade level.
“Last year, 99% of our students passed the Algebra exam,” Jenkins claimed, per the news release. “My job as an educator and as the project-based learning coordinator at New Tech is to make my kids into the stars of their own education. I’m very proud of them and excited when they get to present.”
While the Texas Education Agency has released individual categories of STAAR exam results, full accountability reports for Texas school districts for the 2022-2023 school year have yet to be released due to ongoing litigation regarding grading criteria, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
