A Getting Started Guide for Teachers

MathFactLab is designed to be user-friendly for both students and teachers. To help you get off to a strong start, here are a few suggestions.

1. Get familiar with MathFactLab - Take some time to familiarize yourself with the program before introducing it to students. A great way to do this is by watching our DIY Professional Development tutorials. In under 30 minutes, these short tutorials will walk you through the program’s key features, show you how to adjust settings, and highlight best practices for ensuring your students get the most benefit from MathFactLab..

2. Don't start until your students are ready. MathFactLab is designed as a practice program, not an instructional one. Before starting with MathFactLab, students should already have a foundation in the math operations they will be practicing. Strategy instruction and hands-on practice need to come first.

   For guidance, see the document, MathFactLab Alignment with Grade-Level Expectations. It outlines how MathFactLab levels connect to most state math standards and explains when it is appropriate for students to work in the Advanced and Challenge stages.

3. Prepare your students before their first login. Before students begin using MathFactLab on their own, take a few minutes to show them what the program is and how it works. This introduction helps set expectations and prepares them for independent math fluency practice. These student introductory videos provide a helpful overview of what they can expect.
4. Set a standard for your students' independent work. Modeling MathFactLab as a class is a great way to show students what effective practice looks like. Encourage them to work carefully through each level, paying close attention to the models in the activities. These models highlight number families, inverse operations, and strategies that support a structured approach to building math fact fluency. You may be interested in reading a little more about the foundational research behind MathFactLab.
5. Make use of the Teaching Tools in the teacher dashboard. These tools let you project any level, in either learning mode, for whole-class or small group instruction. This allows you to walk through the activities together, to help build familiarity with our models, and to use MathFactLab for direct instruction or class warm-ups. This article explains how to access the Teaching Tools and how they may be used effectively.
6. Create a consistent schedule for student practice using MathFact Lab. For students to achieve real growth in their fact fluency, we recommend that they complete three or more sessions (of at least 10 minutes) per week. Scheduling these regular practice blocks into your math program will lead to faster progress and support stronger performance in other areas of math instruction. Read Recommended Student Usage per Week for more details.
7. Monitor your students' progress and make adjustments when needed. Most of your students will be able to work independently in MathFactLab and will make consistent progress through the increasingly challenging levels. Some, however, may need extra encouragement or small adjustments to their settings if their progress slows down. See Ways to Differentiate to Meet Student Needs for guidance on where and how you might make those adjustments.
8. MathFactLab is not a quick fix. It won’t instantly make your students fluent in math facts. Lasting progress comes from consistent, focused practice combined with thoughtful teacher guidance.

We hope MathFactLab proves to be a valuable tool for you and your students. Please let us know how we can support you in your implementation.

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