Our Approach
MyMathLearning is built on a simple, well-established idea: students understand math best when they can see it, draw it, and connect it to things they can touch. This page explains the research principles behind the design and how the platform fits alongside hands-on programs — including Montessori.
Math is visual first
The brain has an approximate sense of quantity long before formal schooling. Work on number sense and visual math — notably Jo Boaler and youcubed's research — shows that students who reason with visual representations (number lines, bar models, area diagrams, graphs) build deeper understanding than those who drill symbols alone. Every warm-up here leads with a visual: a number line, a fraction bar, a coordinate graph, a pie chart, a bar model. The picture comes first; the symbols follow.
From concrete to abstract
Jerome Bruner's concrete-pictorial-abstract progression — the same principle that drives Montessori's move from hands-on materials to symbols — is how math understanding grows. The drawing canvas, graphing tool, and draggable models let students show the pictorial step; numeric and equation prompts move them to the abstract. The platform doesn't try to skip the concrete — it assumes a teacher and manipulatives in the room, and reinforces that work with practice and feedback.
It complements — not replaces — hands-on learning
A screen is not a Montessori material, and we don't claim it is. The golden beads, the stamp game, the fraction circles — those are irreplaceable physical, sensorial experiences. MyMathLearning is designed to sit alongside them: a quick visual warm-up, a fluency check, a way to capture student thinking a teacher can review. It extends hands-on work into practice; it doesn't substitute for the hand.
A tutor that asks, not tells
The Socratic method — guiding students with questions rather than handing them answers — is one of the oldest and most effective ways to teach. Our AI tutor does exactly that. When a student is stuck, it asks a question that points toward the next step instead of revealing the solution. When a student photographs their handwritten work, it identifies the first misstep and helps them see it themselves. The goal is the same as a good teacher's: the student does the thinking, and the lightbulb goes on in their head, not on the screen.
For Montessori classrooms
Montessori math is concrete and sensorial through the elementary plane, then moves toward abstraction in the adolescent (12–14) program — exactly the grades we serve. If you run a Montessori adolescent program, the visual, concrete-to-abstract design lines up with how your students already learn. We see the platform as a complement to your materials, not a replacement for them.
Hands-on mini lessons (Open Up Resources 6–8)
For every unit in the Open Up Resources / Illustrative Mathematics 6–8 curriculum, we've added a hands-on mini lesson to the shared library — 27 in all (9 per grade). Each is a short physical or visual launch activity with free illustrations a teacher can print or project, plus a digital warm-up that extends the hands-on work. The goal is for a digital warm-up to launch from a hands-on activity, not replace one. They're available now in the Shared Library.
Want to see it in your classroom?
Create a class, assign a warm-up, and watch your students show their thinking — visually.