How the Assignments Work

These are not ordinary assignments in the way they look or the way they were developed. A SERP partnership team led by Dr. Julie Booth (Temple University) with teachers from six districts set out to create nearly 150 example-based assignments that fit into the routines of 4th and 5th grade classrooms.

MathByExample gives students practice solving problems, as well as practice modeling, analyzing, critiquing, and articulating mathematical arguments.

Each assignment targets common math mistakes and concepts through worked examples that are marked as either correct or incorrect. Students then work a similar problem independently or with classmates.

Sample of assignment with a correctly worked example:

Swipe down to reveal sample student response.

Sample of assignment with a incorrectly worked example:

Swipe down to reveal sample student response.

Development of MathByExample was led by Julie Booth (Temple University) through a SERP collaboration with several school districts. Major contributors to program development include: Kelly McGinn and Laura Young (Temple University), Allie Huyghe, Matthew Ellinger, Emily Schwartz, Avery Jones, and David Dudley (SERP). Special thanks! to the teachers, administrators, and students in our partner districts—Baltimore City Schools, Public Schools of Beloit, Public Schools of Brookline, Fort Madison Community School District, Oak Park Elementary District 97, and Penns Valley Area School District—who were essential to the project’s success, providing feedback at critical points and inviting us into their classrooms along the way!

The collaboration has been supported to conduct this work by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A150456 to Strategic Education Research Partnership Institute. The information provided does not represent views of the funders.