Zearn

Zearn was founded in 2012 with a mission to prove all kids are math kids.[6] According to the organization, Zearn initially started with one unit of digital math lessons and as the organization has developed, it has been guided and informed by teachers so Zearn Math can serve all kids.[7] As a nonprofit organization, Zearn offers teachers and students online lessons and instructional resources for free.[8]

Zearn's instructional materials are part of statewide education programs to accelerate math learning in Colorado, Tennessee, Texas, Delaware, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and the District of Columbia.[5][9][10][11][12][13][14]

Math Chat teaches the concept of the current lesson.

Zearn lesson: Tower of Power.

Zearn lesson: How Many Are Left?

An online K-8 digital math curriculum, Zearn’s platform has collected learnings from billions of completed math problems, with instruction stressing interactive feedback.[5]

Utilizing an integrated approach to both math teaching and learning, Zearn utilizes a blended K-8 curriculum that offers digital and print materials to teachers across the United States, providing professional development and support for teachers as well as classroom and school-level reports on student learning.[15] Support for teachers is embedded throughout Zearn’s curriculum, with additional digital resources for teachers to understand where individual students are in their math learning.[16]

Zearn is a research-based curriculum.[5] Relying on the Concrete Pictorial Abstract framework (CPA), Zearn teaches students to learn math concepts in a way that is intuitive, tangible, and helps them apply their knowledge to the real-world.[3]

When a student struggles with a concept, Zearn provides precise feedback and opportunities to continue trying through multiple strategies to solve a problem, further building math confidence.[4] In any given lesson, educators can see which concepts students are struggling with and can access these students during both whole-class and small group instruction to provide the needed in-person support to close learning gaps.[8]

Zearn Math also offers professional development, accounts with administrator-level implementation services, and print materials for school districts and teachers to help integrate Zearn into core instruction.[15]

Following the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, many students continued to disconnect from learning and despite returning to class, fell behind in reading and math. Research from Learning Heroes, a nonprofit that supports parents and guardians as a child’s most effective education advocate, shows that although assessment data shows lower proficiency levels in math, 92% of all parents think their child is at or above grade level, even after COVID-19. Cindi Williams, co-founder of Learning Heroes encouraged parents to take advantage of free online resources like Zearn to support their child in their learning.[17]

Research by the Harvard Graduate School of Education found that third through fifth grade students using Zearn demonstrated achievement gains equivalent to an additional 1.5 months of learning over 5 years and studying 100,000 students in Louisiana schools, illustrating that Zearn was uniquely positioned to support students and educators through the COVID-19 pandemic school closures. The data combines usage metrics from Zearn Math and the Louisiana Department of Education.[18]

Studies in Nebraska have also shown that Black and Latino students, English learners and those who qualify for free and reduced lunch who used Zearn programmatically achieved significant proficiency gains compared to students who did not.[19][20][21] Similar gains were seen in DC Public Schools.[22]

During the pandemic, Zearn was implemented in Nebraska to provide supplemental support for teachers, high quality instruction and learning acceleration strategies. Testimonial from Dr. Matthew Blomstedt, Nebraska Commissioner of Education stated “preliminary findings demonstrate that the investment in Zearn Math helped students across the state accelerate through math content and helped students in the summer and school year recover from pandemic impacts in math in the early and middle grades. We anticipate that the data will show significant positive impacts for all students but additionally for students with special needs.“[19]

Data from Zearn has also been used by Opportunity Insights, co-founded by Harvard and Brown University researchers to independently analyze American economic activity in real-time. Zearn has provided nationally representative data for two key indicators of economic growth, math participation and math progress. School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic led to significant disruption to learning in most schools and shifted students towards online learning platforms. Using a national sample of 800,000 students, researchers found that decreased participation in online math learning may be indicative of difficulty in keeping students engaged while schools are closed. Zearn’s online course participation data also show that for schools in low-income zip-codes, math course participation rates are lower than their high-income counterparts.[23] This data suggests that school closures are not continuing existing learning gaps but are widening them, said David Williams, policy outreach director at Opportunity Insights.[24] Overall, the data shows that low-income families may experience long-lasting impacts from the pandemic not just through reductions in employment but also through negative impacts on the next generation.[25]

When students fall behind, often the common approach is to remediate students and reteach material from earlier grades before moving onto the next concepts. However, Zearn’s approach to catching kids up is through learning acceleration - instead of starting the year reviewing the previous grade’s lessons, a third-grade teacher would start the year with third grade math content and bring in second grade concepts when students demonstrate the need. Zearn analyzed data from 600,000 elementary and middle school students across the United States, responding to over 5 million instances of either learning acceleration or remediation over two school years.[26] In partnership with The New Teacher Project (TNTP), Zearn data provided comparisons of remediation and acceleration, finding that students who experienced learning acceleration struggled less and learned more than students experiencing remediation. The data also found that students of color and students from low-income households were more likely to experience remediation than their white, wealthier counterparts.[27]

EduRecoveryHub, launched in partnership with the Collaborative for Student Success, The Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University, and the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University commended the Tennessee Department of Education and its statewide implementation of Zearn’s math instruction progress monitoring system.[28]

EduRecoveryHub also spotlighted Zearn’s implementation in Nebraska which resulted in significant student gains on the state math assessment, including large gains for low performing math students, English learners, and Black and Latino students. Nebraska was praised for providing increased access to math support and sharing real-time results to demonstrate the investment impact on both students and teachers.[20]

Additionally in Nebraska, a teacher was interviewed in Education Weekly and quoted about Zearn, “Looking at my student data, this school year for our [winter] MAP testing, I had 100 percent of my class make growth in math, which is phenomenal to see the data improve.”[29]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zearn.

• Official website
• Zearn on YouTube