Implementing InsightMath offers an exciting opportunity for your campus. This innovative, research-based program uses a visual-first approach that aligns with Common Core State Standards while transforming how students engage with mathematical concepts. This guide will help you support teachers and students throughout a successful first year, ensuring a smooth transition that maximizes the program’s powerful design features and builds mathematical confidence across your campus.
Before School Starts: Building the Foundation
Create a Shared Vision
- Familiarize yourself with the InsightMath philosophy of visual-first, brain-compatible learning.
- Communicate how InsightMath aligns with Common Core State Standards and your campus goals.
- Share research supporting how the program builds deep mathematical understanding.
Provide Resource Access
- Ensure all teachers have access to program components (physical and digital).
- Set up classroom manipulative kits and designate storage space.
- Create systems for ongoing resource management and replenishment.
Plan Targeted Professional Learning
- Schedule initial training focused on the InsightMath structure and lesson components.
- Emphasize key features such as the Problem-Solving Process and Discussion-Based Learning.
- Provide time for grade-level teams to examine units and practice facilitating key lesson segments.
Establish Implementation Expectations
- Create a realistic pacing calendar aligned with your district assessment schedule.
- Clarify your expectations for using program components and assessment tools.
- Set up observation and feedback protocols that align with program design.
First Month: Supporting Initial Implementation
Provide “Just-in-Time” Support
- Lead or arrange for weekly grade-level team meetings focused on upcoming lessons.
- Create opportunities for teachers to observe each other teaching InsightMath lessons.
- Be visible in classrooms during math instruction to offer encouragement and model support.
Focus on Core Practices
- Emphasize student discourse as a central component of effective implementation.
- Support teachers in facilitating productive struggle rather than rescuing students.
- Guide teachers to showcase student work samples for class discussion, while leveraging the provided Argumenteers when needed to highlight specific strategies or misconceptions.
Monitor and Adjust
- Conduct brief classroom walkthroughs using a simple tool aligned to key program elements.
- Collect and analyze assessment data to identify early successes and challenges.
- Meet with teacher teams to discuss implementation progress and adjust support as needed.
Build Parent Understanding
- Host a math night or create communications explaining the visual approach of InsightMath.
- Share the Family Guides, which contain information parents can use at home.
Throughout the Year: Sustaining Implementation
Deepen Content Knowledge
- Coordinate study of InsightMath’s mathematical progressions within and across grade levels.
- Focus teacher learning communities on the big mathematical ideas in each unit.
- Use the unit big ideas and cluster essential understandings as guideposts to deepen teacher content knowledge.
Support Differentiation
- Help teachers identify and use the built-in differentiation (Access, Language, Content, Extensions).
- Monitor how effectively teachers are meeting the needs of special populations.
- Share successful practices for using data to inform small-group instruction.
Celebrate Growth
- Highlight classroom success stories during faculty meetings.
- Create opportunities for teachers to share effective practices with colleagues.
- Recognize teacher and student progress toward mathematical goals.
Plan for Reflection and Refinement
- Schedule mid-year and end-of-year implementation reviews with grade-level teams.
- Collect evidence of student learning and engagement to measure impact.
- Identify professional learning needs for the following year.
Implementation Success Indicators
Look for these key indicators that InsightMath is being implemented effectively:
- students actively engaged in mathematical discourse
- visual models being used to develop conceptual understanding
- teachers facilitating rather than directing learning
- student work and thinking prominently displayed and discussed
- evidence of productive struggle and perseverance
- multiple solution strategies being shared and analyzed
- formative assessment used to guide instruction