Teach with Heart
Teaching with Heart means recognizing that teaching is not just about delivering content, but
about caring for students, understanding their needs, and creating a classroom where they
feel seen, safe, and supported.
• It reminds teachers to bring compassion and empathy into their instruction. Educators have a
responsibility to meet the learning needs of all children, which includes recognizing,
understanding, and valuing the diverse perspectives, cultural backgrounds, beliefs,
worldviews, and varying levels of motivation that students bring to the classroom.
• The author encourages future educators to take a genuine interest in the lives of the students
who will enter their classrooms.
• The instruction is informed by personal student responses and surveys to gather insights into
students’ prior math experiences, ensuring the teacher does not assume needs and risks missing
an opportunity to reach and teach them.
Teach with Intention
Teaching with Intention means every lesson, activity, and question has a purpose, ensuring
learning truly moves forward.
• This intentionality is encapsulated in the O.P.T. I.N. acronym, which starts with Observe
(observing student needs) and Prepare (preparing meaningful lessons).
• It’s about planning thoughtfully—using data, observation, and reflection to make decisions.
The purpose of data is to “improve quality and to improve the quality of people’s lives”.
• When teachers opt-in, they are choosing to plan with purpose to uncover learning gaps and
strengthen conceptual understanding.
• Intentional instruction includes tailor-made, interactive lessons that prompt meaningful math
conversations, with a focus on filling math gaps by highlighting and exploring common
misconceptions.
• Choosing examples intentionally allows multiple concepts to be reinforced within the same
lesson.
Teach with Purpose
Teaching with Purpose means teaching is more than covering standards—it’s about making a
difference.
• Purpose-driven teachers use their “why” to inspire confidence, curiosity, and growth in their
students.
• The final steps of O.P.T. I.N! are Transform, Inspire, and Nurture.
• The goal is to develop deep conceptual math knowledge. This is achieved by ensuring that
students understand the why behind procedures, such as regrouping in addition and subtraction,
which is a strategy grounded in place value understanding rather than just a memorized
procedure.
• Teaching with purpose means supporting students who may have been unknowingly victims
of a broken education system that failed to address critical performance issues and low
expectations.
• The manual provides instructional support to inspire and equip teacher candidates and veteran
educators to build strong foundational math skills for themselves and those they teach.
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Join the Movement. Close the Gap. OPT IN!
When teachers choose to O.P.T. I.N!, they are committing to closing the math gap one lesson at
a time. When teachers grow, students soar!
The O.P.T. I.N! model emphasizes that learning math should be meaningful and engaging. By
building deep understanding first, teachers enable students to see formulas as a shortcut to
make sense of what they already know, rather than just a rule to memorize.