Houston Schools Increase Proficiency With Math Games

MIND Research Institute, a non-profit neuroscience and education researcher, announced this week that eight Houston-area schools using MIND’s visual math game ST Math® achieved substantial increases in math proficiency this last year.
Compared to the 2010 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), students’ scores doubled or more in growth this last year compared to schools not teaching with the math game. Among more than 800 participants, students who “Met Standards” increased by 4.2 percentage points and students who achieved “Commended” scores increased by 11.4 percentage points.
“We are very proud of our students, who achieved an 18-point gain in math on the Stanford10 norm-referenced test and a 26-points improvement on commended performance on their TAKS scores,” said Mr. Juan Gonzalez, the principal at Briscoe Elementary School in Houston ISD. “Our staff is dedicated to ensuring that students not just understand the math content that we teach but master all the objectives. MIND Research Institute’s ST Math visual math program completed our school’s math curriculum and the students really enjoyed it.”
MIND partners with local and national foundations and corporations including Houston Endowment, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cisco Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation and the University of Phoenix Foundation to fund the grants of targeted schools. The program, which was implemented by MIND Research’s Math Initiative program, provided site licenses to low-performing schools in major urban areas in the Houston and Spring Branch Districts through grades third, fourth, and fifth.
Participating schools received MIND ST math games, teacher training, and support for teachers and principals throughout the school year. MIND ST is an animated, interactive, self-paced, and visual math game intended to supplement math concept instruction in the classroom. Through philanthropy, MIND has offered licenses to its visual math games to more than 147,000 students, 6,000 teachers and 443 schools in six states nationwide.
“These Houston-area schools demonstrated important achievement gains in math, through the hard work and dedication of both teachers and students in meeting MIND’s implementation standards,” said Andrew R. Coulson, the Education Division President at MIND Research Institute. “We are also grateful for all of our Texas philanthropic partners, who are helping these pioneering educators prove a powerful new tool for Texas math education.”
For more, visit mindresearch.net.