Every day, educators work to engage students in rich, meaningful learning. That's nothing new. What is new is the context you’re doing it in today: a time when young learners need your support more than ever, when many may have missed out on opportunities to build strong foundations due to the chaos of Covid.

That’s where Exemplars supplemental performance tasks come in. They offer a high-potency solution for every classroom, bringing together the three most important subjects in primary education – reading, writing, and mathematics. They’re optimized to help students develop vital foundations of learning, with tools for teachers that make them easy to integrate with your curriculum.

The Power of Exemplars Math

What’s the pedagogical value of Exemplars Math? It begins with the quality of our tasks, our rubric criteria, and our Problem-Solving Process. As students complete any of our problem-solving performance tasks, they practice:

• working with their entire class, in smaller groups or individually
• reading for understanding
• discerning what information is important
• connecting with prior math knowledge
• developing strategies to solve the problem
• utilizing their mathematical toolbox to find a solution
• preparing a written solution that shows and explains their thinking and final answer

This combination of reading for understanding, rich mathematical thinking, and writing explanatory narratives produces deep and indelible learning. Our ESSA research of 131 schools in New York City demonstrates the value of this approach. On average, these schools increased their scores on the NY State Exams from 40.9% proficient to 55.1% proficient after 3 years using the Exemplars program.

A Powerful Tool for Teachers

Exemplars does all this in the span of a single task, integrating reading, writing, and mathematics. And it does it without creating more demands on a teacher’s time: Our materials include detailed lesson planning and assessment resources, preparing you to teach problem solving right out of the box.

The Great Classroom Kids Need Now 

This combination of solid pedagogy and ease of use would be reason enough to make Exemplars Math a part of your regular practice. But a great classroom is also a place where students feel engaged and excited. We’ve got that covered, too, with rich, collaborative tasks that make learning fun. Each of our tasks feature launch images teachers can use to immediately engage students in notice and wonder questioning. They're also written with the expectation that students can use concrete manipulatives and representations to investigate the problem conceptually. Written intentionally to encourage multiple solution pathways, Exemplars tasks create opportunities for rich mathematical discussions as students show their thinking and articulate their reasoning.

Great classrooms are places where lasting learning happens, where problem-solving helps students establish deep mathematical learning. With Exemplars performance materials and differentiated tasks, we've proven it can be done. And, we're here to help it happen.

Download our free samples and give them a try in your classroom today!