Yup’s teaching methods form the backbone of our tutoring process. They were developed by education experts with collective decades of experience as teachers, professors, curriculum directors, and academic deans. These teaching methods are a set of principles, methods, and mindsets that you can instill in your own students to help build their confidence, problem-solving skills, and ability to apply learnings long-term.
Yup may be an app for math tutoring, but our teaching methods were designed specifically to be applicable across subjects and situations. The Yup Learning Team put together this eBook to take you on a deep dive into these methods. So whether you’re an educator looking for even more instructional resources or an administrator seeking tools to help empower your teachers, you can expect to gain the following from our free eBook:
Download the Free eBook
- An overview of our mission to teach students transferable skills
- A thorough breakdown of Yup's research-backed teaching methods
- An introduction to the long-term benefits of learning math
Here’s a preview of our teaching methods. Download the full resource for more!
Habits for Success
Yup tutors help students build habits for long-term learning. Our homegrown methodology for problem-solving was inspired by George Polya’s landmark educational resource How to Solve It and encourages students to adopt a repeatable approach called UPSCR (understand, plan, solve, check, and reflect).
Visible Student Thinking
We closely adhere to the principles set forth by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). This includes training our tutors to ask purposeful questions that prompt students to demonstrate their thought process and understanding. An example of this is asking a student to summarize in writing how they got to a certain step in their problem.
Growth Mindset
When students have a Growth Mindset, they are more open to challenges and tend to build a positive relationship with learning. Pioneered by motivation psychology expert Carol Dweck, this theory touts “productive struggle” as a path towards understanding concepts. Students with a Growth Mindset value the process of learning as much as they value getting the right answer.
Who Created Yup’s Teaching Methods?
The Yup Learning team is composed of education experts who have held every classroom role imaginable. Just like district math directors set the vision for learning in a school setting, our Learning Team ensures that research-based teaching practices are followed in every one of Yup’s tutoring sessions.
Our team director Kreg Moccia is a Harvard alum with over a decade of experience teaching math, coaching teachers, and serving as academic dean for multiple high-performing charter schools in New York City. He leads the strategy for how our tutors teach and ensures that students using Yup are actually learning for the long term.
Educational consultant Claire Polcrack taught upper-level math for five years through Teach for America before becoming Achievement Director for several high schools in New York and Connecticut. She helps set the vision and strategy for Yup’s teaching methods.
Educational consultant Emily Banks also began her education career with Teach for America. She has spent the last 10 years serving students as a math teacher, coach, and most recently as principal. Emily supports Yup’s work with school onboarding in our Yup for Schools program.
The late Professor Judah L. Schwartz also played an important role as a member of our Education Advisory Board, and we miss him dearly. Learn more about his incredible career and contributions in this dedicated post.
