The ASSISTments Foundation is a nonprofit organization that unites educators, learning scientists, and software engineers in their mission to enhance K-12 math education. By developing the ASSISTments platform—an evidence-based, teacher-paced online tool—they aim to improve student learning outcomes. Established in 2019, the foundation is committed to ensuring that ASSISTments remains a free resource for teachers, fostering collaboration and innovation in the education sector. Through ongoing research and federal support, ASSISTments is transforming math instruction and learning for students across the nation.
As a young graduate student in computer science and former Teach For America middle school teacher, Neil Heffernan and his wife Cristina Heffernan, also a math teacher, began a lifelong journey that started with one question: Can we expand the capacity of math teachers by building a system that mimics the processes and behaviors of the best human teachers?
Their curiosity led Neil and Cristina to develop ASSISTments Teacher, a free K-12 formative assessment and practice platform that has been proven to nearly double student math learning in a single year.
Today, Neil is the William Smith Dean’s Professor of Computer Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute where he continues to conduct research using ASSISTments. Cristina is the Executive Director of the ASSISTments Foundation, a non-profit founded in 2019, working to improve and scale the reach of ASSISTments.
Turning Education R&D Investments into Impact
Starting with a teacher’s question—”Can we expand math teachers’ capacity by supporting effective teaching practices?”—ASSISTments evolved through strategic federal investments in education R&D:
$ 2.6 million
$2.6 million from the National Science Foundation
$ 13.2 million
$13.2 million from the Institute of Education Sciences
$ 8 million
$8 million from the Education Innovation and Research grant
The impact of these investments is clear:
1000000 +
1 million+ students served
75 %
75% more learning in ASSISTments classrooms
2 X
2X more math knowledge in one year
How It Works
Educators can use ASSISTments Teacher to assign students classwork, homework, and assessments directly from an Open Educational Resources curriculum or as a supplement. ASSISTments Teacher has a library with more than 200,000 standards-aligned math problems, allowing teachers to create customized problem sets easily and at no cost.
Teachers using ASSISTments receive real-time data on student performance that can inform what they cover in class the following days. Teachers can harness the power of data reports not only for individual assessments but also as a valuable tool for classwide reviews. ASSISTments Teacher gives students personalized feedback on their progress and the opportunity to access hints and explanations on problems that challenge them. Teachers can also write their own student support hints and explanations on the questions they assign.
By providing support to students and data to teachers, ASSISTments Teacher increases learning outcomes and makes both homework and classwork more effective.
Teacher Impact
Palmina Griffin, a sixth-grade math teacher at Trottier Middle School in Southborough, MA, has been using ASSISTments Teacher in her classroom since 2011. She said the student data the platform provides gives her insights that other learning programs don’t.
More than 1 million students have used ASSISTments over the last five years. Based on its impact in disadvantaged urban schools and remote rural areas, US News & World Report and the MIT Poverty Lab named ASSISTments one of the most promising educational technologies in the country.
“ASSISTments Teacher empowers me to meet each student’s needs by providing real-time insights and personalized support, making learning more effective for all.”
Demonstrated Results
SRI conducted a large statewide randomized controlled trial of ASSISTments in Maine and found 75 percent more learning in classrooms using ASSISTments, while students who had scored below average on a math assessment during the prior year learned an equivalent of two years of math in a single year while in an ASSISTments classroom.
Another study by WestEd replicated the outcomes of a previous randomized controlled trial, making ASSISTments one of the most rigorously researched and highly effective math learning solutions available to teachers. According to WestEd:
“Three main findings from the follow-up study show that ASSISTments (1) had a positive impact on student learning in the long term, (2) helped close achievement gaps between White students and students of color, and (3) benefitted more those students whose schools had a higher percentage of students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds or a lower percentage of White students.”
Furthermore, WestEd determined that student learning gains were still measurable a year later: “The effect was sustained after one year of program implementation, which ended at the end of 7th grade.”
The Power of Federal R&D Investment
Leveraging a series of federal investments, the Heffernans were able to create a learning platform that replicated the traits of a successful teacher. The funding also allowed them to test the efficacy of the platform using RCTs and other independent evaluations. Turning what works in the classroom into a scalable learning platform that is backed by rigorous research – is an example of sound education research and development. This story shows how federal investments can help create new learning opportunities for students everywhere.
