Math In Focus

Problem-solving is at the heart of the Math in Focus program. It leverages global best practices and research to create a unique approach based on powerful visual models, engaging hands-on activities, and a consistent K-8 pedagogical approach with the goal of empowering students to develop the critical-thinking skills, positive attitudes, and confidence needed to set the stage for achievement.

An emphasis on metacognition, hands-on problem-solving, and a powerful concrete-pictorial-abstract approach allows students to gain deeper conceptual understanding through hands-on manipulatives, diagrams and models, and abstract symbols. Problem-solving is central to learning. Students are guided in acquiring and applying concepts and skills to non-routine, open-ended, and real-world problems.

Visual learning builds understanding in the concrete stage, while students use hands-on manipulatives to explore new concepts. From there, students move to the pictorial stage to see these ideas represented by diagrams and discover how models help demonstrate the relationships between numbers. Finally, students connect their concrete experiences and pictorial representations to abstract symbols, such as numbers. Math in Focus scaffolds instruction to meet the needs of individual learners with hands-on learning end visual models that support and optimize learning.

Interactive, multi-modal resources ensure growth for every student. Visual models, including bar models, help students develop the ability to visualize mathematical situations, which is key to becoming a successful problem solver. Hands-on activities and manipulatives engage students and let them experience concepts in a concrete way.