Eureka Math


Where are we now?

 We are in year two for two buildings who piloted Eureka Math in our district.  We are in the first year of implementation for the other six buildings in our district.  

 With the hiring of math coaches and liaisons, we are addressing many needs before they become out of control.  The math coaches and principal leaders attended a Eureka training to gain a foundational understanding of the curriculum and the pedagogical shift needed to implement the program in its entirety.

  At the beginning of the year, all teachers participated in an inservice to acquaint them with all parts of the curriculum and how to plan during PLC.  This support has continued throughout the year with coaches attending every PLC to ensure teachers are able to find the ladder for their students.   This is sometimes a struggle for teachers to wrap their heads around.  How to select problems to teach and problems to assign;  How to keep moving forward without reteaching; How to fit everything into my day; etc.  

 So what do I do?   As you plan, select the fluency that your students need - adhering to the time allotted for the activity.  Provide the time allotted for the Application problem and be ready to move into the Concept Development.  The times for these two sections vary, but this is approximately 13-15 minutes of your whole group time.  Next you will teach the Concept Development.  You need to decide what parts of the Concept Development are important for your students to reach the objective of the lesson.   Most teachers do not feel like they are doing justice to their students unless they teach until students master the material.  The goal is not to "over-teach".  If the teacher goes too slow, higher achieving students are bored.  The low students still don't understand the math because they need something different altogether - this is where small group intervention comes into play.  These students might need retaught with manipulatives or need gaps filled with content from earlier grades. 

 So teach a short whole group lesson and be ready to break out into groups at this time.  After the short lesson, the middle to high achieving students should be able to tackle the problems on the Problem Set independently (or with a partner).   The lower achieving students will meet with the teacher to receive a deeper view of the concept - this will most likely involve further teaching with pictures and/or manipulatives.  

 Once the higher achieving students have worked their problems from the Problem Set, the teacher might have an answer key that they can check their work.  If successful, they can move to a task assigned by the teacher - make sure this is high quality to ensure thinking is occurring during this time.  The lower achieving students will take this time to complete their problems from the Problem Set.

 Once students come back together, the teacher will lead a debrief and assign the Exit Ticket.

 Due to the nature of this program and the spiraling that occurs, the pacing probably is faster than what teachers are used to.

 One of the writers of Embarc.online sums up the process like this:


  1. Properly pace the fluency activity and Application problem. Keep it zippy. Assess student understanding, but don't turn it into a teaching moment.
  2. Keep the Concept Development to a minimum. Do as few examples as possible in order to release most students as quickly as possible. I call this "UNDER teach" the math...meaning the teacher should send students to work independently a little earlier than she might otherwise have done.
  3. The teacher now does double duty: reteach a small group while also monitoring the rest of the class.
  4. Have additional problem-solving activities (online or paper-and-pencil) for early finishers of the Problem Set.
  5. Limit the Problem Set time to 10 or 15 minutes only. Then do a short Debrief conversation with the whole class.
Here are a few resources to address the needs of your early finishers: