During the 2024–25 school year, 69% of students in Jordyn Hoffman’s third-grade classroom at Tri Elementary School achieved proficiency in mathematics on Indiana’s ILEARN assessment.

One year later, that number climbed to 77%.

Those results caught our attention in the small community just south of New Castle, Indiana. We wanted to find out what was happening inside Hoffman’s classroom and how she was helping her students reach new levels of achievement.

What does it take to create that kind of success?  Sure you can prepare your students before a test, but the story behind this kind of long-term improvement and success begins long before test day.  It takes consistency, thoughtful curriculum,  and a deep understanding that each student must be met where they are on their math journey.  

Vimme Learning has been incorporated into the Tri Elementary School math curriculum for the past four years and we sat down to talk with Hoffman to find out how she’s using Vimme to help boost the math abilities of her Tri Elementary third graders.  

“It just instantly changed everything for me.”  

 

A Teacher Comes Home

For Jordyn Hoffman, teaching at Tri Elementary is more than just a career choice, it’s a homecoming.  

Hoffman’s connection to the Tri community dates all the way back to her own childhood,  attending Tri schools from kindergarten through her senior year of high school.  Although she started her career elsewhere, it was always a hope that she could bring her teaching back to her home community and give back to the same schools that helped shape her.  

Now in her ninth year teaching and her fourth at Tri elementary, Hoffman has always had a deep connection and roots to the community.  She would spend time teaching dance, and coaching cheerleading, both experiences that reflected a passion for helping and pushing others to learn and grow.  That same passion would eventually cause Hoffman to realize that teaching was a way she could continually feed that desire. 

Hoffman first eyed teaching kindergarten, but after some time she eventually landed on teaching third grade and never looked back.  

“Third grade is just my spot… The kids still have such a strong desire to learn, but then they’re also able to have more of that freedom and flexibility, and I can give them that independence as well,” said Hoffman. “They want to ask questions, answer questions, really dive into those deeper thoughts.  But then I can also give them independence and kind of put some of that responsibility on them as well.” 

She describes the age as the sweet spot for teaching and after learning more about her teaching philosophy, it’s very clear she has in fact found the classroom where she can positively impact her students the most. 

 

A Different Way to Teach Math

Math has always been one of Hoffman’s passions.  Minoring in mathematics in college, the subject came naturally and with enthusiasm for the Tri School alumni. Despite this, she found herself facing challenges with the way math was traditionally taught. 

Before arriving at Tri Elementary, Hoffman worked with a curriculum that focused heavily on individual skills for extended periods.  Students were often taught a certain skill for a matter of weeks, only to move onto something completely different and never touch on that original concept until they were asked to recall it for testing. 

By the time Indiana’s ILEARN assessment approached, Hoffman would often find herself revisiting past concepts that students hadn’t even touched in months. 

That all changed when Tri Elementary introduced Vimme Learning to the curriculum.  

“It instantly changed everything for me.” Hoffman said.  

At the heart of Vimme’s approach is spiral review, an instructional method that continuously revisits previously introduced mathematical concepts while students learn new skills. Rather than teaching a concept in isolation and moving on, spiral review incorporates earlier lessons into ongoing practice, giving students repeated opportunities to strengthen their understanding, retain what they’ve learned, and apply familiar strategies to increasingly challenging problems.

This approach also allows students to build connections between mathematical concepts. Skills introduced earlier in the year remain part of their learning experience, reinforcing foundational knowledge while preparing them for more advanced material.

“What I love about it is that it’s teaching them a couple of skills, really focusing on them, but it’s also challenging them with the skills that they maybe haven’t learned yet,” she explains.

This was not only the structure the students needed to make sure they consistently understood the concepts being taught, but it was also allowing Hoffman to notice and meet students where they truly were individually with their math skills.   

“The amount of resources I had now at my hand, that if a student was struggling at one specific skill, I could search that skill, create my own worksheets, or create my own exit tickets, plus along with the exit tickets they were already giving me,” said Hoffman. 

That flexibility, for Hoffman, was essential.  Every student enters the classroom with a different set of strengths, challenges, and levels of understanding.  Vimme provides the structure, and Hoffman’s knowledge of her students determines how those resources are put to work.  

 

The Power of Consistency

For Hoffman, consistency is more than a matter of classroom management.  It’s an essential part of creating an environment where students can focus and grow.  When you step inside her third-grade classroom, you’ll find students know exactly what to expect. 

Using Vimme’s instructional resources, Hoffman has established a predictable weekly rhythm. Mondays begin with vocabulary and the introduction of the week’s new skills.  Tuesday allows students to explore those concepts more deeply through practice and additional instruction.  Wednesday brings some more spiral review and quizzes followed by assessments on Thursdays and review, retakes, and support on Fridays.  

“They know what’s expected of them and they know what’s coming from me,” Hoffman explains. “Even if they might not know the specific skill, they know the structure of it and how it’s going to be presented to them.” 

That consistency and familiarity allows students to spend less time adjusting to the day’s expectations and more time focusing on the concepts in front of them. 

But that sort of structure doesn’t mean that the classroom is boring, quiet, or rigid. 

“In my classroom, math is the most interactive time of my day,” said Hoffman. 

Students are encouraged to think, discuss, and work through problems together.  Hoffman uses hand signals to distinguish thinking time from response time, ensuring students have an opportunity to process a question before answers are shared. 

Her class also moves between whole-class lessons to partner and small-group activities.  There is also independent practice time.  Whatever the stage, Hoffman has plenty of opportunity to observe how each individual student is picking up on the material and where extra support may be needed. 

This sort of back and forth and combination of Vimme’s consistent structure along with Hoffman’s interactive style creates a classroom where students know what’s expected of them, but still feel the freedom to ask questions and make mistakes.  It’s a balance of structure and engagement that allows the curriculum to really work. 

 

Every Step Forward Matters

For Hoffman, understanding where exactly students are at in their math journey and finding what they struggle with is as important as recognizing where they are succeeding. 

Using Vimme’s assessment reports, she can look beyond an individual test score to identify specific skills that need additional attention. When the data reveals a pattern of difficulty, Hoffman can adjust her instruction and bring students together for targeted lessons.  This allows the class to revisit challenging concepts and provide additional practice. Instead of expecting every student to simply master the skills at the same time, she believes in giving them opportunities to learn, make mistakes, and simply try again. 

“Some students might not be able to master it right now, but that doesn’t mean they never will,” she explains. 

This is where her philosophy and Vimme’s structure collide in the best of ways for her third-grade classroom.  

“I don’t ever want them to just take the test once and never touch it again,” Hoffman said. “I want them to see what they did wrong, know why they did it wrong, and know how they can fix it for the future.” 

Hoffman recalled a time where a student’s math performance began to decline as the concepts became more challenging.  However, through additional support, Vimme’s spiral review, and resources, the student gradually regained confidence.  By the end of the school year, that student had reached proficiency and was even performing above it at times. 

Hoffman even took time away from the classroom that year for maternity leave, however, upon her return that student was waiting to share their improving scores and progress that they had made. 

“They were so proud to show me the success that they had [made],” said Hoffman. 

She even established a Vimme leaderboard that recognizes students, not only for achieving perfect or high assessment scores, but also for demonstrating the greatest improvement, working hard, and showing their mathematical thinking through what she calls the “Show Me Lottery.” 

“We have ‘Show Me Lottery,’ which is just, if you showed your work on your paper and you did a nice job, I enter you in,” Hoffman shares. “A student always has the opportunity to make it on my leaderboard, even if they might not be the highest score or the 100%.”

The result is a system where students have opportunities to be recognized regardless of whether they’re the highest performers in the class. Vimme’s progress tracking reinforces that philosophy and allows students to see how their scores have changed over time. 

“Vimme allows them to do that,” said Hoffman.  “It allows them to see that growth on their own. Growth is growth, and if we’re growing, we’re improving.”

 

A Homecoming Worth Celebrating

Seventy-seven percent.

It’s a remarkable achievement for Hoffman’s third-grade classroom, reflecting the dedication, consistency, and hard work that have become hallmarks of her instruction.

With Vimme’s spiral curriculum, instructional resources, and assessment tools supporting her approach, Hoffman has created an environment where students are challenged, individual progress is celebrated, and every opportunity for growth is embraced. The results demonstrate what can happen when a passionate educator has the tools and flexibility to meet the needs of her students.

“I’ve never seen anything like Vimme,” Hoffman said. “I’ve just seen so much success with it. I genuinely love teaching math every day and getting my students engaged.”

When asked what advice she would offer other educators, Hoffman returned to the philosophy at the heart of her teaching.

“We have to meet students where they’re at, even if it’s not exactly where they need to be yet.”

It’s a philosophy that has helped produce measurable success in her classroom, but its significance reaches beyond the numbers.

When Hoffman returned to the Tri community as a teacher, she hoped to make a difference in the same schools that helped shape her own education. Today, her classroom’s 77% math proficiency rate stands as a powerful example of the impact she’s making.

With her passion for teaching, her students’ determination, and Vimme supporting their progress, Hoffman is helping the next generation of Tri students build a strong foundation in mathematics.

And for a teacher who always wanted to come home, that’s an achievement worth celebrating.