JUMP In: Math Tutoring Program Slows Pace, Builds in Repetition and Gets Results
Created in Canada 20 years ago, JUMP math serves about 20K U.S. students and has improved scores for many.
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As a student, JUMP math curriculum creator John Mighton remembers struggling with the subject and then quickly beginning to panic as he fell behind. The fast pace of the curriculum he was taught prevented him from catching up and then his anxieties about being too slow got the best of him.
鈥淚 would always compare myself to the kids who seemed to get things immediately,鈥 Mighton said. 鈥淚 gave up all the time. I really thought you have to be born with a gift for math to do well and I clearly don鈥檛 have it.鈥
Mighton said that too often, when students 鈥渄ecide they鈥檙e not in the talented group, their brains stop working.鈥
鈥淚t becomes a vicious cycle,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t becomes harder and harder for you to learn math.鈥
For this reason and others, Mighton built plenty of repetition and review 鈥 and an intentionally slower pace 鈥 into JUMP math when he designed the curriculum 20 years ago in Canada. It is now used by 10% of all Canadian students as a classroom resource and by about 2 million students globally, including in the United States, Spain, Chile, Bulgaria and Colombia.
Within the U.S., JUMP provides resources to about 20,000 students annually across Louisiana, California, New York, Washington, Maryland and Michigan. In both 2022 and 2023, the program received grants from Accelerate, a national nonprofit that has given more than $30 million to various groups to scale tutoring efforts post-pandemic. Mighton is using the $400,000 in Accelerate funds to study the impact of JUMP鈥檚 curriculum as a tutoring resource in Louisiana and Michigan.
Robin Collinsworth, an instructional coach for math and science at Choudrant Elementary School in Choudrant, Louisiana, which uses JUMP math as both its primary classroom curriculum and as a tutoring resource, said it鈥檚 鈥渄ifferent from most curriculums鈥 because of its focus on scaffolding.
Collinsworth said that with JUMP lessons, instructors 鈥渦nravel the content one strand at a time.鈥
鈥淏y the end of the lesson you weave it all back together in a logical way that makes sense to kids,鈥 Collinsworth said.
Kristanne Grange, a third-grade teacher at R.H. McGregor P.S. in Toronto where the whole school is piloting JUMP鈥檚 math curriculum, said that with some previous math resources she鈥檚 used that were more based on open inquiry, students approached problems 鈥渨ithout any fundamental skills鈥 and were lost. In contrast, Grange said JUMP is 鈥渁lmost back to the rote ways that I used to learn where there was a fact-based repetitive style to the curriculum.鈥
鈥淭his program is very much based on more individual practice, more building on skills as they come,鈥 Grange said. 鈥淚t’s very much like Legos clicking together. And so the children develop a lot of confidence and have a really good foundation to lean on when they start focusing on a problem.鈥
Brent Davis is a professor of math education at the University of Calgary who has been collaborating with JUMP and Mighton for years. Davis said there are 鈥渢ypically鈥 between 10 and 20 things a student needs to notice in order to understand a mathematical concept.
鈥淚n order to learn mathematics well, to make sense of any given concept, you have to notice a whole bunch of little things around each concept,鈥 Davis said.
Davis said Mighton and the JUMP math team are 鈥渆specially talented at identifying everything that somebody needs to notice in order to understand the concept鈥 and that all of those things are 鈥渁lready built into鈥 the JUMP math curriculum.
鈥淚 know of no other resource that does that,鈥 Davis said. 鈥淚t is incredibly well engineered.鈥
Mighton said the number one thing that stands out about JUMP Math is that 鈥渨e have evidence.鈥
A study of over 1,000 elementary school students in Canada who were taught with JUMP math found those students made 鈥渟ignificantly more progress in math learning in the second year, especially in problem-solving.鈥
鈥淛UMP math may be a valuable evidence-based addition to the teacher鈥檚 toolbox,鈥 the study states.
, which serves low-income students on New York City鈥檚 Lower East Side, saw the biggest improvement in math scores in the city in 2014 鈥 the same year it adopted the JUMP math curriculum, according to JUMP math. Manhattan Charter School did not respond to a request for comment.
implemented JUMP math between 2017 and 2019. Two of those schools 鈥渁chieved striking gains鈥 on state tests, according to JUMP math. In one school, the number of students scoring proficient in math increased by 23 percentage points. The NYC Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.
JUMP math鈥檚 initial grant from Accelerate, for $250,000, was used to implement 鈥渄igital interactive lessons that students can use for independent, self-paced learning,鈥 in Louisiana, Mighton said. The lessons were tested last spring with about 1,000 students. Students were given half-hour intervention periods during the school day to complete the digital lessons.
Mighton said that the digital lessons were created by recording 鈥渕aster teachers鈥 teaching from JUMP math lesson plans and then splitting the lessons into short, two-minute clips. Then, Mighton said, JUMP inserted 鈥渄igital interactive questions鈥 between the clips to assess whether students understood the material.
鈥淭he study鈥檚 goal was to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and support systems required to successfully implement a scalable tutoring model to address learning loss among students,鈥 a JUMP math press release said. 鈥淭he report shows improved overall math proficiency among participating students, whose learning progressed rapidly while using the JUMP math lesson modules over a two-month period, with a statistically significant improvement in scores across all modules.鈥
Tilman Sheets, a psychology and behavioral sciences professor at Louisiana Tech University, said in the release 鈥渢he report findings suggest that the implementation of dedicated tutoring support and resources might contribute to reducing disparities in math skills among our most vulnerable students and may help to cultivate an interest in this critical subject.鈥
Collinsworth, the Choudrant Elementary School instructional coach, said that her school participated in the initial Accelerate study with digital sessions. Collinsworth said a fourth-grade class and two fifth-grade classrooms took part and all three saw gains. Collinsworth said a sixth-grade class also did the digital lessons, but said 鈥渢here was a glitch in the module鈥 so that class did not show growth.
The second Accelerate grant, for $150,000, is being used by JUMP to study both in-person and online live tutoring with JUMP resources. The study includes about 300 students in grades three through eight in both Louisiana and Michigan. In Louisiana, tutors are Louisiana Tech University students who come into schools for in-person tutoring, according to Mighton. In Michigan, tutors are mostly volunteers, he said, and some do their sessions with students online, while others tutor in-person.
Collinsworth said Choudrant Elementary is also participating in this second pilot.
鈥淓verything is going really well and I expect to have positive results,鈥 she said.
Dana Talley, the chief academic officer for Lincoln Parish School District in Louisiana, which includes Choudrant Elementary, said teachers who execute JUMP math lessons 鈥渢he way it鈥檚 intended just really get good results.鈥
Talley said it is exciting to see JUMP math branch out into tutoring.
鈥淭he way JUMP is set up, the teacher in the classroom is a personal tutor for kids,鈥 Talley said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 how it’s designed. So I feel like it makes a ton of sense. They definitely have the right curriculum to move into the tutoring realm.鈥
Mighton said he expects tutoring to take on an even greater role in JUMP鈥檚 evolution.
鈥淭here is such a need,鈥 he said.
Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Overdeck Family Foundation provide financial support to Accelerate and The 74.
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