Zearn: Increase Persistence Through Struggle During a Formative Assessment
Joined 2023
Partners
Zearn
What are we building?
Zearn Math is a nonprofit, online program for students in grades K–8, used as a supplement to daily math instruction. Students complete adaptive digital lessons during classroom math blocks, intervention periods, or tutoring sessions to strengthen understanding of grade-level concepts. Each lesson includes activities to build procedural fluency, guided video instruction that follows a Concrete–Pictorial–Abstract (CPA) progression, and a mastery-based quiz, that requires a perfect score before advancing. Lessons adapt in real time to give personalized feedback and scaffolding—supporting students through challenges while keeping them engaged in grade-level learning.
The Zearn team is testing new features within the end-of-lesson mastery-based quiz, the Tower of Power, to strengthen student motivation, engagement, and persistence:
Human-like text-to-speech voices that replace current robotic audio for click-to-listen support.
Enhanced growth mindset messages with greater variety, personalization, and animation.
Goal-oriented celebration features
What are we learning?
Through this work, the Zearn team is studying:
Whether new/updated features in the formative assessment component of each digital lesson enhances student belonging, growth mindset, and self-efficacy
How to improve persistence through struggle without increasing cognitive or instructional burden
How to balance motivational design with rigorous formative assessment
Products
Enhanced experience in the mastery-based quiz component of the Zearn digital lesson ("Tower of Power”)