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The teaching background behind the whole curriculum. All of it is free, no card needed.

Free course Math Success Foundations Masterclass Seven lessons on how children actually learn number. Free, no card needed. Open
Free series Coaching Natalie Watch and listen as 5th grade teacher, Natalie, works with DMTI coaches Jackie and Jonathan to level-up her math instruction and leadership. Coming soon
August 11 3:30pm MDT, 45 minutes
Live call Register for office hours August 11, 3:30pm MDT, 45 minutes. Bring your questions, a DMTI specialist answers live.

DMT Insights

All 46 are free to read and print. No account needed.

Grade
Topic
Read this one DMT Insights Are Your Students Really Understanding Line Plots? This DMT Insight examines why students commonly misinterpret line plots, focusing on confusion between quantities and counts as well as misunderstanding symbols like X marks. It shares research-based strategies—such as clear language, visual mo Watch DMT Insights Are Your Students Really Understanding Line Plots? This DMT Insight examines why students commonly misinterpret line plots, focusing on the confusion between quantities and counts, as well as misunderstandings of symbols like X marks. DMTI Overviews Geometry / Measurement / Data (3-5) Watch DMT Insights Assessing Student Understanding This unit overview presents the DMT assessment framework, which guides educators in assessing student understanding in mathematics through a multi-level approach encompassing skill-based, problem-solving, conceptual, and reasoning tasks to identify m Watch DMT Insights Bridging Core and Intervention Curricula This DMT Insight clarifies the distinct roles, structures, and best practices of core and intervention math curricula, highlighting how their purposeful alignment and integration can better meet diverse student needs and address persistent gaps Watch DMT Insights Building Place Value Proficiency: Key Insights from Educational Studies Research highlights the critical role of visual representations in developing students’ conceptual understanding of place value. Watch DMT Insights Building Stronger Math Thinkers Through Progressive Formalization This DMTI Insight explains how progressive formalization guides students from intuitive, hands-on math experiences toward a deep understanding of formal mathematical concepts. DMTI Overviews Watch DMT Insights Developing Percentage Proficiency This DMT Insight explores effective strategies for teaching percentages, addresses common student challenges, and provides evidence-based recommendations to help educators improve their instruction of this topic. Watch DMT Insights DMT Insight 43 - Number Lines Should Be Built This DMT Insight shows how letting students build number lines—not just use them—strengthens their structural understanding by helping them reason about units, scale, and magnitude, improving number sense, measurement skills, and graphing. Watch DMT Insights DMT Insight 47 - Teaching Ratio Tables This DMT Insight explores how ratio tables serve as a flexible symbolic structure that bridges visual and algebraic reasoning, helping K–8 students develop deep multiplicative and proportional thinking by moving from sequential unit iteration to stra Division Multiplication / Division (3-5) Watch DMT Insights DMT Insight 49 - Bar Models and Word Problems Why Students Struggle with Word Problems and How Bar Models Help. This DMT Insight explains why students who can compute still freeze on word problems — and how bar models give them a way to think. DMTI Overviews Resources Watch DMT Insights DMT Insight 50 - Digital Dependence This DMT Insight shows why mathematical thinking stalls when digital tools do the cognitive work for students, and why real understanding depends on students constructing and rebuilding ideas themselves rather than recognizing answers on a screen. Read this one DMT Insights DMT Insight 51 - Place Value This DMT Insight breaks place value into its key developmental understandings and gives grades 3–6 teachers diagnostic items that reveal whether students truly grasp units and magnitude—or are only naming places. Place Value (3-5) Whole Numbers (3-5) Watch DMT Insights DMT Insight 51 - Place Value -- The Understanding that Predicts Later Math Success This DMT Insight breaks place value into its key developmental understandings and gives grades 3–6 teachers diagnostic items that reveal whether students truly grasp units and magnitude, or are only naming places. Place Value (K-2) Watch DMT Insights DMTI Aligns with Hattie's High-Impact Strategies DMTI empowers teachers with research-backed resources and professional development focused on teacher clarity, feedback, and collaborative learning. Watch DMT Insights DMTI Practice 1 - Why Student Ideas Matter This DMT Insight describes how taking students' initial ideas seriously, building on their intuitive knowledge, and engaging in crucial cognitive processes improve long-term understanding and skills. Watch DMT Insights DMTI Practice 2 - How Math Models Transform Learning This DMT Insight describes how mathematical modeling (inactive, iconic, and symbolic) bridges intuitive understanding with formal mathematical reasoning to improve understanding and problem-solving skills. Watch DMT Insights DMTI Practice 3 - Prioritizing Conceptual Learning in Mathematic This DMT Insight describes prioritizing conceptual understanding before procedural skills to enhance students' long-term learning. Watch DMT Insights DMTI Practice 4 - Unleashing the Power of Mathematical Structure This research examines the role of mathematical structure in mathematics, emphasizing structural language such as unit, compose, decompose, iterate, partition, and equal enhance reasoning. Watch DMT Insights DMTI Practice 5 - Harenessing Misconceptions This research explores why and how addressing misconceptions in mathematics builds students' understanding and problem-solving abilities by leveraging errors as learning opportunities. Watch DMT Insights Drills vs Strategies: Building Flexible Mathematical Thinkers This DMT Insight explains how replacing drill-focused fluency practice with strategy-based instruction and purposeful retrieval builds flexible, confident, and conceptually grounded mathematical thinkers. Watch DMT Insights Early Predictors of Math Success This DMT Insight highlights the importance of spatial reasoning and measurement skills as early predictors of long-term success in mathematics. Watch DMT Insights Embracing Mistakes and Misconceptions This DMTI Insight explores how to leverage student errors as formative assessment to diagnose mistakes and misconceptions and design instruction that builds deep, conceptual mathematical understanding. DMTI Overviews Watch DMT Insights Five Interpretations of a Fraction The five interpretations of fractions - part-whole, quotient, measure, operator, and ratio - form a crucial framework for understanding this complex mathematical concept. Fraction 3-6 Fraction Concepts (3-5) Watch DMT Insights Fraction Understanding: Challenges, Misconceptions, and Effective Practices Research highlights the importance of using visual representations and precise language to develop students’ conceptual understanding of fractions. Fraction 3-6 Fraction Concepts (3-5) Watch DMT Insights Harnessing Struggle, Minimal Hints, and Varied Practice This DMT Insight explores approaches in mathematics education that prioritize long-term learning: emphasizing productive struggle, minimizing excessive hints, and implementing varied practice. Watch DMT Insights How Varied Practice Transforms Math Learning Varied Practice transforms routine problem-solving into reasoning by engaging students in translating among story, visual model, and symbolic representations—building deep conceptual understanding and flexible mathematical thinking. Watch DMT Insights How Varied Practice Transforms Math Learning This DMT Insights demonstrates how using varied practice worksheets—where students translate among story problems, visual models, and symbolic equations—builds deeper mathematical understanding and flexible reasoning in every learner. Watch DMT Insights Investing in the Tool or the Teacher This DMT Insight examines why curriculum alone rarely improves math outcomes and shows how strategically investing in teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching is one of the most cost-effective ways to strengthen instruction, equity, and student Watch DMT Insights Math Fact Fluency Math fact fluency, the ability to quickly and accurately recall basic mathematical operations, is fundamental to mathematical proficiency. Fact Fluency (K-2) Fluency and Flexibility Watch DMT Insights Multiplication Models, Vocabulary and Progressions This DMT Insight synthesizes findings on how interconnected models, structural vocabulary, and thoughtfully designed learning progressions enhance students’ understanding of multiplication. Multiplication / Division (3-5) Multiplication Fluency Watch DMT Insights Number Line vs the 100's Chart This DMT Insight compares the effectiveness of number lines and 100s charts as teaching tools and highlights the benefits of number lines. Watch DMT Insights Rethinking Powers of Ten This DMT Insight synthesizes key insights on teaching powers of 10, emphasizing its foundational role in mathematics education, addressing common misconceptions, and integrating effective instructional strategies to enhance students' conceptual Middle School Number (6-8) Read this one DMT Insights Standardized Testing Insights and Tools for Educators This DMT Insight explains how educators can use standardized assessment frameworks, such as Depth of Knowledge and assessment blueprints, to better understand, align with, and leverage state tests. Watch DMT Insights Summer Math Programs Boost Language This DMT Insight: Beyond Worksheets shows how research-based summer math programs that integrate hands-on problem solving, visual models, and rich mathematical language not only boost math achievement but also strengthen students’ broader academic an Watch DMT Insights Teaching Area and Perimeter This DMT Insight explains why students persistently confuse area and perimeter and shows how intentionally teaching dimensions, units, and tools leads to lasting understanding. Geometry / Measurement / Data (3-5) Measurement (3-5) Watch DMT Insights Teaching Quadrilaterals for Understanding Beyond "Name the Shape": Teaching Quadrilaterals for Real Understanding examines why students develop persistent misconceptions about quadrilaterals, what cognitive research reveals about how geometric thinking develops, and how grounding instruction Watch DMT Insights The Diamond Problem This DMT Insight shows why common shape posters and worksheets create misconceptions like “diamond,” and how teaching shapes as intersecting lines and invariant properties transforms geometry learning. Geometry (3-5) Geometry (K-2) Watch DMT Insights The Five Counting Principles This DMT Insight examines the five counting principles, common student difficulties, cognitive psychology insights, and effective teaching strategies to support the development of early numerical understanding. Number Primary Whole Numbers (K-2) Watch DMT Insights The Power of Division: Unlocking Mathematical Potential Division is a fundamental mathematical operation crucial in developing numerical understanding and problem-solving skills. Division Multiplication / Division (3-5) Watch DMT Insights The Struggle with Rounding and Estimation This DMTI Insight examines the common misconceptions in rounding and estimation, offering research-based strategies to shift instruction from memorized procedures to genuine mathematical reasoning. Watch DMT Insights Time Matters This DMT Insight demonstrates how instructional time—daily, weekly, and yearly—directly influences the depth, durability, and equity of students’ mathematical learning. Watch DMT Insights Unlocking Math Success: Foundations in Number Sense Early mathematics education shapes students' long-term mathematical understanding and problem-solving abilities. A key component of this is developing number sense. Watch DMT Insights What DOK Means in Math This DMT Insight explores how Depth of Knowledge reshapes lesson design and instructional questioning by focusing on the mental actions students perform, helping educators build math instruction that develops fluency, structure, and understanding. Watch DMT Insights When Math Sticks The Cognitive Science of Durable Learning This DMT Insight synthesizes the latest cognitive science on memory, schema theory, and learning strategies, providing educators with insights to help students build lasting and flexible mathematical understanding. DMTI Overviews Watch DMT Insights Why Measurement Matters: The Building Blocks of Math The research underscores the critical role of measurement as a foundational concept in developing students’ mathematical understanding. Measurement (K-2) Measurement K-2 Watch DMT Insights Why Teacher Knowledge is the Key This DMT Insight demonstrates that meaningful gains in elementary math come not from new materials but from strengthening teachers’ mathematical understanding, learning-science knowledge, and pedagogical skill.

Tutorials in the full portal

75 short videos on the models and the language, one per topic teachers get stuck on.