Just ask any veteran teacher, and they’ll tell you about the litany of changes they’ve seen in their classroom over the years— and that’s not even to mention the drastic changes that were put into place due to the pandemic.
With all those changes comes a simple truth: that students today learn in a dramatically different way than they did even five or 10 years ago. The curriculums that we’re expected to teach can feel awfully outdated if they don’t take modern considerations into mind, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the math classroom.
Vimme Learning is an online math curriculum that was built to teach today’s students on modern terms. While building the program, we identified three signs that a math curriculum wasn’t built for success in the 2020s. If your curriculum isn’t meeting your students’ needs, here’s how you’ll know:
1) You’re shackled to a textbook
Students today are doing more online than ever. Even if your school isn’t yet 1:1 with laptops or tablets, odds are your math class does at least some of their coursework electronically. Be it quizzes, assessments, video instruction or math games, today’s students are conditioned to thrive in an online environment.
So where does a physical textbook fit into the modern math classroom’s digital future? If you’re like many teachers, textbooks can feel more like a ball and chain than a helpful resource. You may be stuck bouncing between digital and physical resources, or manually entering information from the book into a digital slide deck.
If living between the physical and digital world is wasting your time and hindering your students’ learning, it’s time for a new curriculum.
2) You’re not using real-time data
Growing up in the digital age, students are accustomed to near real-time results. Fortunately for us as math teachers, the amount of ed tech at our disposal means there’s a goldmine of data waiting to be put to use for our eager students.
A modern math curriculum like Vimme Learning gathers real-time data as students complete their online coursework. It gives teachers more information than ever before on how each child is mastering content — and lets students know the exact skills and concepts to focus on during review days.
3) E-learning days still feel rough
Before 2020, many school districts toyed around with sporadic e-learning days. But even with that meager amount of experience under their belts, no district was prepared for weeks on end of e-learning when the pandemic began.
Today, e-learning is an integral part of how we teach, and today’s students are able to fluidly switch between in-person and offsite learning. Similarly, our math curriculums must be able to seamlessly switch between the classroom and the screen. If you and your students dread e-learning days, there’s a good chance your curriculum is to blame.
With interactive notebooks, anchor charts and online quizzes among other features, Vimme Learning sets students up for success no matter where they’re learning.
Vimme Learning — a modern math curriculum
Vimme Learning is an online math curriculum that’s based on more than 25 years of experience in the classroom. But just as important as Vimme’s roots is how Vimme is geared toward the present and future of learning.
Vimme was built from the ground up to offer more engaging coursework that captures students’ attention and naturally builds rigor into your lesson plan. Below are just a handful of the features that help your students buckle down and apply themselves in math:
- Ditching the textbook — Math textbooks often feel like a relic of a bygone era, especially in schools that are 1:1 with tablets or laptops. Vimme’s online curriculum is just as robust as any textbook, and always growing thanks to input from contemporary math teachers.
- Cumulative, spiral review — Nothing makes a student tune out faster than math concepts they don’t fully understand. Vimme is built on the concept of spiral review, where the cumulative curriculum gives students an opportunity to practice every skill again and again. It’s a comprehensive way to patch up skill gaps, while ensuring that students can continue to focus on the new skills being taught each week.
- Instant feedback on Vimme tests — No more waiting around for grading by hand. Vimme’s online math tests are graded instantly, giving your students immediate feedback once they’ve submitted their answers. They can instantly see their grade, which questions they got right, and the areas where they’ll need a refresher.
- Fact fluency made fun with Mathbots — Repetition is an important part of any math curriculum, but it’s not always the most exciting way to spend a class period. Vimme’s Mathbots are an interactive fact-fluency game that grabs students’ attention while hammering home foundational math skills.
Vimme has been capturing students’ attention in classrooms across Indiana, and it can make a difference in yours, too. Try out Vimme for six weeks for free, with no strings attached, and see what a modern math curriculum can do for your students.