Making Math Moments That Matter

Jon Orr interviews Zak Champagne, author of Curious Kids in the Math Classroom , about practical ways to foster student curiosity through classroom community, authentic questioning, task design, and small shifts to existing math lessons. K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammates, system leaders, and educators create aligned instructional practices—without a...

The math wars often focus on conceptual understanding versus traditional algorithms. Jon Orr and Yvette Lehman explore a deeper challenge: understanding the prerequisite mathematical ideas students need to access new learning. K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammates, system leaders, and educators create aligned instructional practices—without adding anoth...

We want students to be curious, persistent, and resilient problem solvers. But what if those aren't qualities students simply bring into our classrooms? What if we can actually create the conditions for them to emerge?  K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammates, system leaders, and educators create aligned instructional practices—without adding another...

Ever reach the end of the semester only to feel like you're reteaching everything from September? If students learned it once but can't retrieve it months later, the problem may not be the original lesson. It may be how—and when—they encountered mathematics.  K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammates, system leaders, and educators create aligned i...

We say we want students to become critical thinkers, problem solvers, and mathematical reasoners. But do the systems in our classrooms and schools actually reward those things—or are we still rewarding speed, compliance, and correct answers?  K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammates, system leaders, and educators create aligned instructional practices—with...

Your math team meets regularly. You strategize, make decisions, and talk about improving mathematics. But when everyone leaves the meeting, does the work actually move forward? Too often, teams spend more energy making decisions than putting those decisions into action.  K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammates, system leaders, and educators create aligned...

We’ve all heard it: “My students can do the math—they just struggle with word problems.” They can perform the calculation when it’s presented directly, but put that same mathematics inside a context or multi-step problem and suddenly things become much more difficult. The instinct might be to give students more word problems to practice, but what if the real challenge lies somewhere deeper?  K-12...

If you could wave a magic wand and walk into any math classroom five or ten years from now, what would you hope to see? What would students be doing, saying, and thinking? How would the room feel? Those questions can reveal far more than a list of instructional strategies—they can help a team uncover what they truly want mathematics teaching and learning to become.  K-12 Math Leaders: Download our...

Stepping into a new math leadership role can feel exciting and overwhelming at the same time—especially when your responsibility suddenly expands from supporting one school or district to supporting dozens. Where do you begin when every district is at a different place, has different needs, and may already be working toward different mathematics goals? That's exactly the challenge facing one...

School and district leaders often feel pressure to create widespread change as quickly as possible. But sustainable math improvement doesn't happen by trying to reach everyone at once—it starts by building the capacity of the people who will eventually lead the work. K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammates, system leaders, and educators create aligne...

Why do so many mathematics improvement efforts begin with energy and optimism, only to lose momentum months later? Schools invest in professional learning, adopt high-quality instructional materials, launch coaching cycles, and create pacing guides—yet lasting instructional change often remains frustratingly elusive. K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammate...

Homework has long been a part of the mathematics classroom, but opinions about its value continue to vary. Should students be completing pages of practice each night, or is there a better way to extend learning beyond the classroom? K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammates, system leaders, and educators create aligned instructional practices—without adding...

Every school system wants to improve student achievement in mathematics. Yet when students struggle, the immediate response is almost always the same: more intervention, more support programs, more people working at the bottom of the cliff. While these efforts are essential, they often come at the expense of investing in the work that could prevent students from struggling in the first place. K-12...

Assessment is one of the most powerful tools teachers have—but it's also one of the most misunderstood. Too often, every task, activity, or game is expected to produce a grade, making it difficult to distinguish between supporting learning and evaluating it. K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammates, system leaders, and educators create aligned instruc...

Many school systems want better mathematics outcomes, but few struggle because of a lack of effort. More often, the challenge is figuring out how to create meaningful change at scale—without overwhelming teachers, coaches, and leaders along the way. K-12 Math Leaders: Download our free Math Coherence Compass to help your teammates, system leaders, and educators create aligned instructional practic...

If you’ve ever wondered what to actually do during small group time in math, this episode will give you a clear and practical way to support students without lowering expectations. We built a simple Math Coherence Compass to help district and school leaders make aligned decisions around math—without adding another initiative. Get your free copy and training here https://makemathmoments.com/coheren...

If you’ve ever wondered what to actually do during small group time in math, this episode will give you a clear and practical way to support students without lowering expectations. We built a simple Math Coherence Compass to help district and school leaders make aligned decisions around math—without adding another initiative. Get your free copy and training here https://makemathmoments.com/coheren...

If you’ve ever wondered what to actually do during small group time in math, this episode will give you a clear and practical way to support students without lowering expectations. We built a simple Math Coherence Compass to help district and school leaders make aligned decisions around math—without adding another initiative. Get your free copy and training here https://makemathmoments.com/coheren...

If you’ve ever wondered what to actually do during small group time in math, this episode will give you a clear and practical way to support students without lowering expectations. We built a simple Math Coherence Compass to help district and school leaders make aligned decisions around math—without adding another initiative. Get your free copy and training here https://makemathmoments.com/coheren...

If you’ve ever wondered what to actually do during small group time in math, this episode will give you a clear and practical way to support students without lowering expectations. We built a simple Math Coherence Compass to help district and school leaders make aligned decisions around math—without adding another initiative. Get your free copy and training here https://makemathmoments.com/coheren...

If you’ve ever wondered what to actually do during small group time in math, this episode will give you a clear and practical way to support students without lowering expectations. We built a simple Math Coherence Compass to help district and school leaders make aligned decisions around math—without adding another initiative. Get your free copy and training here https://makemathmoments.com/coheren...

If you’ve ever wondered what to actually do during small group time in math, this episode will give you a clear and practical way to support students without lowering expectations. We built a simple Math Coherence Compass to help district and school leaders make aligned decisions around math—without adding another initiative. Get your free copy and training here https://makemathmoments.com/compass...

Improving math instruction and student achievement is something every school and system wants. But despite that desire, real, lasting change often feels out of reach. Not because educators don’t care—but because the work required to get there is harder than expected. It’s easy to want the outcome: stronger math programs, more confident teachers, improved student results. But those outcomes depend...

Improving student achievement in mathematics is a goal shared by schools, districts, and systems everywhere. Yet despite years of effort, many classrooms still aren’t seeing the shifts in instruction or outcomes that we’re aiming for. If the goal is clear, why does progress feel so inconsistent? The challenge isn’t a lack of effort. Teachers are working hard, and schools are investing time into pr...

In math education, there are a lot of terms that get used interchangeably—unpacking standards, planning units, designing lessons. But for many teachers, it’s not always clear how these pieces fit together. Are they all the same thing, or is there an important difference that impacts how we teach? At first glance, it might seem like lesson planning is simply following a resource or turning the page...