Lesa Whitehead is a special education math teacher for grades 10 to 12 in Saratoga Springs, Utah. 

As a special ed teacher, Lesa has to keep track of her students' progress, and identify the different areas in math to address in order to reduce knowledge gaps for each of her students. After interviewing her students to understand the kind of support they'd like in learning, Lesa actively sought out online math programs that could meet both the needs of her and her students.

Watch Lesa's Teacher Story to learn more about how she uses Mathspace in her classroom.

 Alpine School District, Saratoga Springs, Utah

 Using data to identify and eliminate knowledge gaps

Mathspace in a Special Ed Classroom

Cara Nestor is a grade 5 and 6 math teacher at Saint Paul School in Westerville, Ohio.

Cara uses the data provided through Mathspace reports to see how her students are progressing, and to identify knowledge gaps. She values the insights as they give an indication of whether her tasks and assignments are at the right level of difficulty. Cara then uses these insights to customize tasks based on their understanding, and personalize learning for each student.

Watch Cara's Teacher Story to learn more about her Mathspace journey and how she uses Mathspace in her classroom.

 A focus on STEM, moving towards differentiated learning for all students

Using Data to Differentiate 

Sierra Voigt is a math teacher at Pennfield High School in Battle Creek, Michigan. Searching for alternatives to paper textbooks which become outdated quickly, their school piloted Mathspace in 2017.

At Pennfield High, teachers believe that students improve in math best with practice. Mathspace is used as a daily practice tool at Pennfield High, where teachers assign customized tasks for their students to work through after a new topic is introduced in class. Students are able to work through the questions on Mathspace with assistance available at hand through hints, videos, and step-by-step feedback.

Watch Sierra’s Teacher Story to learn more about her Mathspace journey, and how the teachers and students at Pennfield High School use Mathspace in their school.

  Pennfield School District, Battle Creek, Michigan

See how this textbook-free school is using Mathspace

Ashley Ferraro is a math teacher at West Springfield High School in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Using a student-centered approach to teaching mathematics, Ashley focuses on getting her students to improve their conceptual fluency in mathematics by thinking critically for each question and understanding the why and how of the solving process, rather than repeating a procedure. Ashley uses Mathspace as the main tool for setting homework for her students to follow this approach. 

Watch Ashley’s Teacher Story to get some useful tips on using Mathspace, and learn more about her Mathspace journey.

  Fairfax County Public Schools, Springfield, Virginia

 Student-centered approach with a focus on improving conceptual fluency

Improving conceptual fluency in mathematics with Mathspace

The King’s School is an independent boys' school located in Parramatta, Sydney. It strives to provide a curriculum that is rigorous, contemporary and innovative, whilst also instilling a love of learning in students. The aim of the Mathematics Department is to promote student appreciation of the subject and develop their mathematical thinking, understanding, confidence and competence in solving mathematical problems. 

In 2017, they selected Mathspace as a resource to help them achieve these outcomes for their students. Mathspace has complemented the explicit direct instruction model that many teachers at King's prefer, allowing them to quickly and easily identify students’ knowledge gaps, increase mathematical discourse with their students, and promote independent learning.

David Strutt, with 40 years teaching experience, and Figen Yamaner, with 20 years teaching experience, have found Mathspace to be a valuable tool in their classrooms, as it provides them with flexibility to implement technology in ways that support their students’ learning. 

David and Figen are confident that Mathspace will support and consolidate the concepts they teach their students. Mathspace provides features that help teachers with lesson planning, monitoring progress through classwork and homework, and general support to ensure technology is successfully implemented in the classroom.

One of the biggest reasons The King’s School utilises Mathspace as a learning tool is the breadth and depth of the curriculum coverage within the textbook lessons and comprehensive question sets.

Mathspace provides immediate step-by-step feedback to students, which helps them engage with content. This makes it an effective tool to help students consolidate their learning.

Figen attributes this to the instant feedback Mathspace provides students.

Figen reflects on a class that was typically more challenging to keep engaged.

Figen and David start with direct instruction, presenting their lesson at the front of the class, then students complete work based on the concepts that have been presented.

David uses Adaptive tasks, which allow students to work at their own pace through each subtopic. At the start of a new topic, he communicates the outcomes with his students, and gives them a time frame to complete work on that topic.

Students have the expectation of completing Mathspace tasks and textbook work in the assigned time, reaching out for help when they need it. The ability to so quickly and easily set a whole unit of work for students is a favourite feature of David’s.

Figen used Custom tasks and tailors them to the needs of her classes. For high-achieving classes, she uses Mathspace as a summary to check for understanding at the end of a concept or topic. This keeps the class dynamic and students see it as a reward. For students who need more guidance, she chooses small sets of specific questions to target specific skills. Reflecting on a previous class, Figen says,

Using data to monitor progress and reinforce classroom expectations

The reports of student work on Mathspace make it faster to identify students who need more help in a particular area. It also helps teachers ensure that students are on task, which helps reinforce classroom expectations and homework patterns.

Collaboration and meaningful conversations in the classroom

Figen and David love that every step of student working is recorded. They use the task reports to find questions students are stuck on and look at their steps of working. This informs discussions that address misconceptions and create opportunities for meaningful discussions and learning opportunities with students.

When students are using it in class, Mathspace can be used to facilitate class discussions. If a student is struggling on a particular question, David locates it from his Mathspace dashboard and projects the same style of questions with different values. He works with the student, scaffolding the steps and allowing the students to apply the concepts to the question they’re working on. He has also found this can lead to class collaboration. 

David and Figen want to inspire the love of learning and instil a sense of curiosity in their students. They push students to use the textbook lessons, hints and videos when they have questions or feel stuck to help to encourage independent learning.

Ensuring quality resources in a digital age

Overall, the quality of Mathspace as a learning tool dedicated to enhancing mathematics education has changed attitudes about using technology in the mathematics classroom.

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Promote student appreciation of mathematics and develop their thinking, understanding, confidence and competence in solving mathematical problems.

Tradition meets Innovation

Briana Rutter is a maths teacher at Meriden School in Strathfield, NSW. At Meriden, teachers move away from a procedural approach and shift the focus on teaching for understanding.

Briana follows this approach by incorporating Mathspace adaptive tasks in her classroom, as they generate questions suited to the level of understanding of each individual student, taking each student on their personalised learning path. The teacher reports also provide Briana the most important information on how her students are progressing, which students need some extra help, and which areas her students find most difficult.

Watch Briana’s Teacher Story to learn more about her Mathspace journey, and how she and the rest of Meriden School uses Mathspace inside and out of their classrooms.

Targeting student needs with Mathspace Reports

Sacred Heart College, Kyneton is a co-educational Catholic Secondary School located in Melbourne, Victoria. One of the College’s core educational values is courage. To achieve this, Sacred Heart focuses on fostering learning environments that build students' personal efficacy, resilience and confidence. 

Sacred Heart has been using Mathspace since 2015. "We wanted to try something 
that would enable our teachers to spend more time assisting struggling 
students, whilst also allowing students at the top end to be extended," 
says Year 7 Leader and Math Teacher, Jamie Walker.

Setting custom tasks for students to explore in class

Jamie Walker explains that he often pre-prepares custom tasks ahead of a classroom lesson. When creating custom tasks, Jamie has the ability to select the exact questions that he wants students to work through.

When Jamie starts the lesson, he explains the concept or area of study to students and then asks them to work on the Mathspace task during class. He encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing in this time.

Jamie says he’s seen first-hand the impact of Mathspace on students' confidence and independence.

Jamie says that Mathspace helps him to instil the school’s policy of "ask 3 before me" in the math classroom. Many of his students use Mathspace's videos and hints for extra support when solving questions.

Jamie says that one of the big benefits of Mathspace for teachers is the data. He says that the data has helped him to better differentiate his students within a classroom. 

After he sets a custom task in class, he'll review each student’s progress from the Mathspace data dashboard. This helps him to identify knowledge gaps at a class level, as well as for individual students. He then uses these insights to shape the next classroom lesson. 

Once he has the data on how students are performing, Jamie will determine which students are struggling and which students are excelling. He then might assign another custom task for struggling students.

For students that are excelling, he will often assign an adaptive task to deepen their understanding.

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Giving students the resources and skills to encourage independent learning