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If you wait until every student has mastered a math concept, you might still be in Unit 1 in December.

Many teachers feel they can’t move on until students demonstrate mastery—especially after recent learning gaps. But staying in one math unit for weeks or months often creates a different problem: reduced access to grade-level math, missed standards, and growing opportunity gaps for the entire class. In this episode, Jon Orr, Yvette Lehman, and Beth Curran explore the question teachers are asking right now: When is it okay to move on in math—and how do you do it responsibly?

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why “don’t move on until everyone gets it” is unrealistic for Tier 1 math instruction
• How experienced math teachers plan for concepts to return through spiraling and connections
• Why “moving on” is often an assessment and grading philosophy issue
• How formative math assessment helps teachers move forward without abandoning learning
• How lesson structures can create a “safety net” for Tier 2 support while Tier 1 continues
• How leaders and coaches can support teachers in pacing, rigor, and access to grade-level math
• Why slowing everyone down can unintentionally widen opportunity gaps

If you’re trying to balance pace, rigor, and student understanding in math, this episode will give you a clearer framework and practical moves for moving on with intention.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Yvette Lehman: We had a conversation with a teacher recently who I think it was maybe in December and they were talking about how far into the curriculum they were at that point in the year and already feeling that I’m not going to get to everything because I’ve been spending weeks and weeks and weeks or months on these concepts because my students haven’t demonstrated mastery or proficiency yet and feeling like I can’t move on until we get this figured out. But now it’s coming on January and there’s still a lot of content that we haven’t even explored. And so the question that we’re answering today is when is it okay to move on? At what point can we say, okay, we’re gonna step away from this particular unit or concept, we’re gonna move into the next when maybe not everybody has demonstrated that they’ve met the standard.

Jon Orr: Have you had experience not moving on?

Yvette Lehman: Have I? That’s a good question. I mean, have I?

Jon Orr: You’re like, wait a minute, because you’re saying like, well, when do we move on? But have you had a time where you’re like, you know what, I’m not moving on?

Yvette Lehman: Personally, I don’t think I have.

Jon Orr: Why not?

Yvette Lehman: Okay, so early in my career, I wouldn’t have stayed on that unit forever, for weeks and weeks and weeks because I would have felt the pressure of pacing, of curriculum coverage. It’s like, I need to get through this entire textbook and this is how I’ve paced it. And if I spend an extra month on this unit, I’m gonna be off pace. I think later in my career, I would have moved on because I would have recognized that those concepts would come back up and I’d have other opportunities to strengthen and reinforce them through other strands. So just because we haven’t all mastered division in this division unit, I know that division is not going away. But I do know that we talk to teachers who maybe sometimes feel like, well, my students don’t have addition and subtraction mastered, I can’t move into these other strands or units.

Jon Orr: What do you think the key understandings are that teachers need to have in order to feel okay with moving on? Because I think what you’re saying is that you knew you were going to recycle ideas, you were going to bring ideas back, and you were actively assessing where students were and where they needed to go. You knew there was opportunity later on to revisit. So if I’m a teacher who’s resistant to doing that, what are some key understandings that maybe they haven’t had yet?

Beth Curran: I think deeply understanding the content that you are teaching is helpful in that. Yvette was able to look at her curriculum and know that if the students don’t have addition and subtraction with regrouping right now, I know it’s going to come up again later, or I’m going to build in that extra practice time. Every time we get to measurement, they’re adding and subtracting lengths, they’re adding and subtracting weights. So it’s going to provide an opportunity for that additional practice. I think it’s deeply knowing the content that you’re teaching and not teaching concepts in isolation and knowing that things are connected. If they didn’t master addition and subtraction with regrouping in that chapter, it’s okay to move on because even though the next chapter is called measurement, we’re still going to practice adding and subtracting as we’re working through measurement. That’s really hard for a first year teacher or a teacher who’s new to a curriculum.

Jon Orr: I think this is also an assessment philosophy issue. Sometimes we feel like we have to give a grade at the end of the unit and then we never revisit it. But really, you are assessing all year long. It’s okay to look for those understandings down the road and be flexible enough to go back and adjust a grade if that’s what you’re worried about.

Beth Curran: That opens another can of worms about how we record student understanding and how we let parents know where their child is as far as meeting standards. Are we using a percent grade or standards-based assessment? If I’m assessing student growth toward meeting a standard, then maybe first trimester they are here, but by second trimester I’ve reassessed and now they’re closer. Those are conversations that teachers may not have control over, but they can start asking why our report card looks the way it does and whether it’s time to rethink it.

Jon Orr: Formative assessment is a big part of knowing where students are and whether it’s okay to move on.

Beth Curran: One other thing is to think about how you’re structuring your lesson so that you allow for small group remediation, that tier two instruction, while your tier one instruction is moving on at grade level. That provides a safety net. You do your whole group lesson, identify through formative assessment that some students aren’t grasping what they need to grasp, and then grab that group during independent work time for tier two instruction. That way you’re not feeling like you can’t move on because a few students don’t understand yet.

Yvette Lehman: If we are always slowing the pace or reducing the rigor of tier one to meet the middle or to make sure everybody has access, then are we unintentionally creating opportunity gaps for everyone? If that happens year after year, we’re compounding gaps in opportunity for all learners. So it is a big question.

For principals, I think teachers need the opportunity to teach the same grade level more than once. It’s hard to see where a concept lives in the curriculum if it’s your first time through. If every single year I’m getting a new grade, I don’t know how you would see where the concepts live in other units or strands.

Jon Orr: Teaching multiple years at the same grade or being a math-specific teacher can be a very impactful move. If a teacher is focusing on one subject instead of eight, it can do wonders for your system.

Yvette Lehman: For coaches, imagine you’re supporting a new teacher who says, I can’t move on, my students still don’t know how to subtract. How could a coach navigate that?

Beth Curran: In one-on-one coaching or PLC meetings, dig into the content and help teachers see the connections between what’s coming up. Let them know it’s okay to move on because we’re going to see this again. Help them provide tools for students who haven’t mastered it yet. Strengthen their tier two instruction. Look at the curriculum together and identify where opportunities to practice the skill again will appear.

Yvette Lehman: I think at one point the pendulum was we were covering the curriculum without formative assessment. Now the pendulum has swung where we’re slowing everybody down to create more access and success, but we might be leaving off expectations at our grade level and unintentionally creating opportunity gaps for all. It comes back to assessment, having a really good understanding of where we need to be by the end of the year, and helping move every student as close as we can to meeting the standard through strong tiered instruction without losing the rigor of tier one.

Jon Orr: If you want to continue this conversation and structure your math program to focus around assessment, you can head over to makemathmoments.com forward slash discovery and hop on a call with us to talk about what this could look like for you going into next year.

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