When Dacula Middle School Principal Dr. Kellye Riggins needed to take dramatic action, she turned to Cmdr. Celisa Edwards of the Starfleet Institute of the Sciences. The assignment: Bring some of our “at risk” seventh-grade math students up to the rest of the student population.

With a little help from the Starfleet fantasy and iLearn Math software, these “cadets” – otherwise known as students – not only caught up, but surpassed the rest of their peers. And in less than one school year.

"Our success was incredible," Cmdr. Edwards concluded after 39 of her 40 students (98.5%) passed the Georgia CRCT. The year before, only 60% of these students passed.

Gwinnett County Public Schools administers benchmark tests in all schools every 9 weeks. The pretest in the chart above illustrates the results after the first 9-week period and compares the test group with the other seventh-graders in the school. Immediately following this test, the 40 low performing students began using iLearn Math. The posttest scores came after just two 9-week periods.

When comparing gains – or the amount of improvement – the test group doubled the percentage point increase of the rest of the school’s seventh-graders. In other words, they jumped twice as high in student improvement.

“We have had amazing increases this year,” said Cmdr. Edwards, who masterfully weaves fun and fantasy into her curriculum by "boldly going where no student has gone before."

This chart compares the amount of improvement between the test group using iLearn Math and the rest of the seventh-graders. The numbers represent the difference between the pretest and posttest scores as represented by percentage points.

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