Individually, each of them has reshaped how students learn mathematics. Now, they’re collaborating, and we get a behind-the-scenes look at how their work fits together.

Table of Contents

Meet Dr. John Mighton and Dr. Amanda VanDerHeyden

John’s Story

John describes himself as a mathematician now, but that wasn’t always the case. As a student, math was a struggle. He nearly failed university calculus and didn’t discover a love for mathematics until his thirties. What changed everything?

A desire to help local kids.

He started a small tutoring club with friends, working with students who faced significant challenges. What happened next surprised everyone—even John.

The children made remarkable progress, sparking a journey that led him to create Jump Math, a nonprofit curriculum built on the belief that every child can learn math with the right support and structure.

What began in his apartment now spans classrooms across the world.

Amanda’s Story

Amanda grew up in the world of MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support) and Response to Intervention, where reading interventions often overshadow math. But as she points out:

“Math proficiency opens doors—and it can close doors for children too.”

So she built it.

Over 20 years of studying, developing, refining, and publishing results in real time, she created Spring Math, a comprehensive MTSS system for math. It includes assessments, interventions, progress monitoring tools, and—crucially—support for the adults implementing the system.

As Heather notes, so often in education we test students and then ask, “Now what?”

Spring Math gives schools the full answer.

The Origins of Jump Math

John begins with a story that shaped the entire direction of his work—a sixth-grade student who had been assessed with an IQ of 70 and was performing at a first-grade math level.

To help her, John began creating lessons broken down into incredibly small, accessible steps—what he now calls micro-scaffolding. And then something remarkable happened.

Three years later, that student was not only performing on grade level—she advanced into academic-grade ninth-grade math, then skipped a year and completed grade ten.

Was she misassessed? Did something about the instruction fundamentally change the way she learned?

John has seen this pattern repeated across thousands of kids.

Math skills don’t just build competence—they can reshape a child’s confidence, identity, and even cognition.

Math, John argues, isn’t just about college admissions or career readiness:

“Math is a gift to teachers if they want equity—if they want to change kids’ attitudes about themselves.”

Structured Inquiry: The Heart of Jump Math

Jump Math is not discovery learning. It’s not “let kids explore and hope they figure it out.”

Instead, John describes it as:

Structured Inquiry

• The teacher leads with carefully crafted Socratic questions.
• Students make connections independently, but never blindly.
• Teachers continuously assess what kids understand—moment by moment.
• Differentiation happens through bonus questions that increase in difficulty, giving each student a “ramp” to climb at their own pace.
  

  The goal? Keep students in what scientists call the Goldilocks Zone—not too easy, not too hard.

  
  John references a Nature article describing the 85% Rule for Optimal Learning:

  We learn best when material is just a little beyond our comfort zone—when we “almost” get it but need to stretch.

  Most teachers want to keep students in this zone—but without the right scaffolds, it’s incredibly challenging.

  Jump Math builds those scaffolds into every lesson, expanding students’ confidence and capacity over time. And when students develop strong schemas and the ability to see relationships instantly, something beautiful happens:
  Their learning becomes more fluid—more independent.

  They move closer to true mathematical discovery, but only because the foundation was built deliberately first.

  Radical Equity

  Most curricula start at grade level and assume students are ready for the content. Jump Math goes in the opposite direction:

  It starts at the level students actually need.

  Jump Math refuses to sort children into hierarchies, which John points out begins as early as first grade, creating a cycle of learned helplessness and math anxiety. Instead, it provides incrementally harder problems that allow everyone to move forward together.

  Evidence-Based—But Not Like Most Programs Claim

  Heather then asks this question with a knowing smile:
  “When we say that Jump Math is evidence-based, what does that actually mean? Are most curricula evidence-based?”
  John laughs.
  Then says what everyone in education quietly knows:
  “No.”

  He explains that districts adopt programs with zero evidence, and fads spread across North America with no research behind them.

  Jump Math, on the other hand, is listed on the Evidence for ESSA website—a rigorous bar that requires high-quality randomized controlled trials.

  Teachers reported increased focus and behavior because students were so excited to feel smart. Dr. Vanderheyden jumps in here—because she has studied Jump Math’s research deeply. Before Jump Math, she tells Heather, the strongest effect size she had seen in a core curriculum was 0.11. That’s extremely small.

  Jump Math?
  Four to six times larger effects than the closest competitor. Amanda puts it plainly:
  “It’s a no-brainer. Jump Math works because it’s designed according to how humans learn.”

  And that’s the reason, she says, the United States struggles with math despite abundant resources:

  Teachers aren’t supported with curricula grounded in cognitive science.

The Growing Confusion in Math Classrooms

For many teachers and parents, today’s math landscape feels unsettlingly familiar — like watching the early days of the reading wars play out all over again.

As Dr. VanDerHeyden put it bluntly:

“Teachers are lost. They’re really lost.”

She draws a direct parallel to the moment when schools embraced whole-language reading instruction, only to later discover it lacked scientific grounding. Math, she warns, is now stuck in its own version of the same misguided experiment.

“The Lucy Calkins of math is alive and well, and it’s probably in your child’s classroom.”

For parents trying to make sense of curriculum night handouts — and teachers trying desperately to make their district’s program work — this resonates deeply.

When “Productive Struggle” Turns Into Plain Old Struggle

Amanda points out a painful truth: many popular curricula have inadvertently convinced teachers that struggle itself is the point. Kids are encouraged to “discover” concepts long before they’ve mastered any foundational skill.

The result? Frustration, anxiety, and disengagement — especially for students already at risk.

She puts it simply:
“The best way to have children have excitement about their learning is to give them things they can do.”

In other words: mastery creates motivation. Competence breeds confidence. Kids crave the feeling of winning — not watching others “get it” while they freeze up.

Why So Many Kids Fall Through the Cracks

Amanda cuts straight to the heart of why so many students end up labeled with learning disabilities, including dyscalculia.

In the U.S., the number of students identified with learning disabilities skyrocketed 300% in just one decade, with no improvement in outcomes.
Why?

Because the problem wasn’t the kids.

“It’s not LD. It’s ABT: Ain’t Been Taught.”
— Amanda VanDerHeyden’s mentor, Dr. Joe Witt

In other words:

• Students are being misidentified
• Curriculum is failing them
• Interventions often repeat the same ineffective lessons
• Kids internalize the belief they “aren’t math people”
  

  The truth?

  Learning is learning. Any student can learn when teaching aligns with how the brain works.

  In fact, in Amanda’s randomized controlled trials, students with IEPs who participated in class-wide intervention improved from 40% to 80% pass rates on state math tests.

  The Real Crisis: Parents Don’t Know What They Don’t Know

  Every back-to-school season, Amanda sees the same heartbreaking pattern:

👉🏼Kids bring home poorly designed homework
👉🏼Parents blame themselves or their child
👉🏼Teachers blame student motivation

The cycle repeats 🔁 But the real issue?

“Most likely, it’s ABT.”

Not a learning disability.
Not “new math.”
Not a kid who “just doesn’t get it.”

Just instruction that doesn’t follow the science of learning.

John emphasizes that many students in special education are often mis-assessed—they simply haven’t been taught properly. His book, All Things Being Equal, argues that math is a key to equity. Intellectual inequality, he says, can be eradicated quickly with clear, principled teaching.

Rethinking Curriculum and Teacher Bandwidth

Amanda VanDerHeyden adds that teachers are often constrained by rigid curricula that leave little room for meaningful learning.

“There are so many practices teachers are forced to do, or the crummy curriculum drives them to give lessons that squander their bandwidth. If teachers had that time back, they could give children much more benefit.”

Amanda recounts a visit to a Maryland school where a seasoned math teacher was modifying an ineffective curriculum in real time, prioritizing what actually worked for students over what she was “supposed” to do. She was adjusting the discovery problems, moving students toward true understanding rather than forcing them through inaccessible lessons.

This approach aligns with research in cognitive psychology and behavioral science. As Amanda explains:

“You’re trying to give generalization-type instruction to kids who are still in the acquisition stage of learning. That’s exactly how inquiry, discovery, and productive struggle are often misused in curricula—it’s reliably predicted to worsen learning if applied too early.”

Math can—and should—be made accessible to every child. By revisiting foundational principles, reevaluating curricula, and focusing on true understanding, we can transform the way children experience math—and open doors to equity and opportunity along the way.

Diving Into Spring Math

Dr. VanDerHeyden dives deep into the development of Spring Math Accelerate, a system designed to make math instruction more effective for all students. What started as a district-level challenge in Arizona became a decades-long mission to create a scalable, data-driven approach to improving math outcomes.

“It is my life’s work,” Amanda shares. “I started building pieces of it in the late ‘90s, and as a district leader in Vail, Arizona, I quickly realized the math data for students wasn’t good. I screened every student in reading, writing, and math, and the results confirmed it—there was a real problem to solve.”

Amanda explains that early on, resources for intervention were scarce. Existing programs didn’t address the high prevalence of math risk effectively, which made it difficult to identify students who truly needed individual support. Her solution was Classwide Math Intervention—a system designed to reduce math risk across the entire school, enabling more precise and targeted interventions for individual students.

“We ran it so well that only 2% of the screened population required tier-three intervention. Students went from middle-of-the-pack to first in the state on math achievement, and the learning disability rate dropped significantly. By delivering effective instruction at scale, we improved equity and academic outcomes simultaneously.”

How Spring Math Works

Spring Math Accelerate combines universal screening with classwide and individualized intervention in a real-time, data-driven system. Unlike many digital programs, it doesn’t attempt to replace teachers—it empowers them.

🟣Curriculum-Based Mastery Measurement: The program uses patented assessment methods to monitor student progress continuously.
🔵Classwide Intervention: Every student participates in daily 15–20 minute sessions, ensuring high-impact instruction reaches all learners.
🟢Targeted Individual Support: Data from classwide interventions identifies students who truly need extra help, minimizing unnecessary tier-three interventions.
🟡Real-Time Coaching: Teachers receive weekly intervention packets, scripted activities, and ongoing data feedback through a coach dashboard, so support happens in real time where it’s needed most.

Amanda emphasizes the critical role of teachers in the system: “The teacher is the heart and soul of this work. Technology isn’t meant to replace them—it’s meant to make excellent teaching easier to deliver. We automate data interpretation, freeing teachers to focus on the harder work: delivering a sufficient dosage of high-quality intervention every day.”

By combining rigorous assessment, continuous feedback, and scalable classwide interventions, Spring Math helps schools improve student outcomes, reduce inequities, and make data-driven decisions without overwhelming educators.

Collaboration: Jump Math Meets Spring Math

Heather asked how these two programs began collaborating.

Amanda shares that she first connected with John Mighton after hearing about his work for years.

“I started looking at their data and I’m like, my goodness, this is outstanding. From that moment, I wanted to support this work. I can now wholeheartedly recommend Jump Math as a core curriculum.”

The collaboration grew from shared goals: both programs aim to ensure all students achieve mastery in math, but each addresses different pieces of the puzzle. Jump Math provides a carefully sequenced curriculum that builds skills step by step, with lessons designed to make math accessible and confidence-building for all students. Spring Math, on the other hand, is a data-driven system that supports teachers in delivering that curriculum effectively to every child, identifying gaps, and guiding targeted intervention.

John adds that Spring Math complements Jump Math beautifully:

“One of our biggest challenges in Jump Math is helping teachers think like tutors—taking responsibility for every child in the class and ensuring mastery. Spring Math gives teachers a system to identify who needs help and how to intervene, supporting all learners effectively.”

Together, the programs focus on early identification and instruction, preventing students from falling behind on fundamental skills like subtraction with regrouping or division. This approach reduces the number of students needing intensive intervention later, ensuring every child receives the support they need at the right time.

In practice, the partnership allows schools to:

• Ensure Early Identification: Students are screened at the beginning of the year, so those at risk are quickly identified.
• Deliver Targeted Instruction: Jump Math’s structured curriculum builds foundational skills while Spring Math guides teachers on when and how to provide small-group or one-on-one support.
• Maximize Teacher Effectiveness: Teachers don’t have to guess who needs help or rely on intuition; Spring Math provides real-time data and coaching, ensuring instruction is precise and efficient.
• Prevent Long-Term Struggles: By combining the curriculum and intervention system, students rarely reach high school still struggling with basic skills. Early mastery reduces the need for intensive intervention later.
  

  Access and Availability

• Jump Math is available for schools, classrooms, and thousands of parents and homeschoolers worldwide.
• Spring Math is available for school systems and is priced at the student level, with volume discounts to ensure full-class implementation.
  Both programs emphasize using data to guide instruction rather than replacing teachers with technology. The goal is to help educators deliver high-quality math instruction effectively, supported by real-time data and coaching. 

  Looking Ahead

  John and Amanda are continually expanding their offerings. Jump Math has released Making Math Click, a course on math and the brain, and is developing preschool programs across Canada. Spring Math continues to innovate, helping schools deliver effective math instruction in real time with MTSS structures.

  The collaboration between Jump Math and Spring Math is a promising step toward a future where every child has access to meaningful, mastery-based math instruction—and where teachers have the tools and support they need to make it happen.

  As John says, “There’s no reason to keep math exclusive. Within 10–15 minutes, most children can understand concepts that were once reserved for a few.” With the right instruction, assessment, and support, every child can thrive in math.

  The insights shared by Dr. John Mighton and Dr. Amanda VanDerHeyden highlight a critical truth: effective math instruction isn’t just about curriculum or intervention—it’s about giving teachers the tools, data, and support they need to reach every student.

Want to dive deeper? Check out our other Unlocking Dyscalculia Podcast Episodes!

MFM Authors