Learning targets

The site teaches one thing: how to start a word problem. Almost every screen comes before the arithmetic. These are the targets it practises, as student-facing “I can” statements with the Bloom’s Taxonomy level of each.

Overarching target

I can analyze a word problem’s structure — which situation it describes and which quantity is unknown — before I choose an operation.

The core trip

One target per screen, in the order a student meets them.

#	I can…	Bloom level	Screen
1	Read a story for what is happening before I can see any of its numbers	Understand	Read
2	Select the picture that represents a story’s structure — which piece is missing on a ride of one line, or which situation it is on the Grand Tour and Percent Line	Analyze	Which picture?
3	Cite the sentences that prove the structure, and classify the problem as Compare, Equal Groups, Ratio & Rate, Change or Part–Whole	Analyze / Evaluate	Platform Check
4	Distinguish the numbers that matter from the ones that are only scenery, by placing them into the picture	Analyze	Plan
5	Construct a model of the relationship — a bar, ratio table, double number line or tray — and estimate before computing	Apply / Create	Plan
6	Explain how a strategy shown on different numbers carries over to mine	Understand	Test Track
7	Carry out the calculation step by step, and tell apart a calculation slip from a wrong plan	Apply / Analyze	Engine Room
8	Judge whether my answer is reasonable against my estimate, the question, the units and common sense	Evaluate	Arrivals Board
9	Critique someone else’s wrong answer and diagnose which mistake produced it	Evaluate	Critique
10	Choose my own approach to an unscaffolded problem and justify it	Evaluate / Create	Terminus Hub

Help tools — chosen by the student

Under Help me see it. Never required; the site highlights the one that would help after repeated misses, and the trip report names the ones a student chose.

#	I can…	Bloom level	Tool
11	Distinguish the quantities that matter from the ones that are only scenery	Analyze	Sort the numbers
12	Identify what the question is really asking for, including its unit	Understand	Find the question
13	Determine which part of the structure is missing	Analyze	Find the missing piece

Crossover Island

Problems that join two situations end to end.

#	I can…	Bloom level
14	Break a problem where the story changes what it is doing, and select the picture for each half separately	Analyze
15	Identify the transfer — the value that is an answer in the first half and a given in the second — and recognize that finding it does not finish the problem	Analyze / Evaluate

Across the whole site

#	I can…	Bloom level	Where
16	Explain why a keyword cannot choose the operation, and tell apart words that name an operation (sum, per) from words that only raise a question (more than, each, of)	Understand / Evaluate	The Word Board
17	Interpret a percent as notation sitting on top of a situation, and find what it is a percent of	Analyze	Percent Line and Percent Yard

Worth knowing before you use these

The Bloom order is inverted on purpose. Analyze (targets 2–4) comes before Apply (7), and a student cannot skip it. That is the site’s central rule: recognize the structure before you calculate. The picture choice (2) is the recognition, asked in pictures rather than in a run of questions.
The site asks one question at a time. Each problem is a single screen whose panels stay put; the question panel asks, and the explanation appears in the feedback below it. The deeper reading steps (11–13) are tools a student opens when they need them.
Remember-level targets are almost absent, also on purpose. The one exception is the vocabulary on the Word Board — and even there, the point is that vocabulary alone is not enough.
These are targets the site practises, not targets it assesses. Nothing on the site produces a score, so it gathers no evidence of mastery. To assess a target — 2 or 9 are the most revealing — do it off the site. A good check: can the student redraw the model on blank paper a week later?

Standards alignment

Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice:

MP7 — look for and make use of structure: targets 2–5 and 11–13
MP4 — model with mathematics: targets 2, 4 and 5 (choosing and filling a visual model)
MP1 — make sense of problems and persevere, including checking the answer: target 8
MP3 — critique the reasoning of others: target 9