Instructional Routines: A Powerful Tool for Adult Education Math Classrooms

Explore the new collection from the Adult Numeracy Network (ANN)!

The folks at the Adult Numeracy Network (ANN) have built a collection of resources to help adult education teachers bring instructional routines into their math classes.

All of the instructional routines in the ANN collection:

• Are accessible and challenging, respecting students as sense-makers
• Are adaptable to students at any level
• Can be approached in multiple ways `
• Promote understanding through discussion and center student voices
• Make student thinking visible

At the time of this review, there were supports for bringing the following 34 instructional routines into your classroom:

What are instructional routines?

“Instructional routines are specific and repeatable designs for learning that support both the teacher and students in the classroom… enabling all students to engage more fully in learning opportunities while building crucial mathematical thinking habits.”
 — Kelemanik, Lucenta, & Creighton (2016)

Instructional routines are predictable structures that encourage thinking—not just right answers. Unlike one-off activities, instructional routines are meant to be used again and again. They create a rhythm that help create classroom environments where students feel safe exploring ideas and allow teachers to focus on guiding thinking

How do instructional routines support math teachers?

1. Instructional routines help teachers plan their lessons.

• • Provide ready-made structures that reduce planning time. Teachers don’t have to decide on the structure or flow each time.
  • Offer a predictable format that can be easily adapted to different content.
  • Help teachers align activities with clear goals and learning targets.
  • Allow flexibility while maintaining a strong focus on mathematical thinking.

2. Instructional routines help teachers focus on student reasoning.

• • Center student thinking and encourage multiple solution strategies.
  • Create space for students to explain and defend their ideas.
  • Promote active listening and peer-to-peer discussion.
  • Help teachers assess understanding through student talk and work, not just answers.

3. Instructional routines help teachers introduce new concepts and material.
4. Instructional routines help teachers incorporate other math topics during the semester.

Routines allow teachers to bring in or spiral content —at various times during the semester—without needing to teach a new structure every time. For example, a teacher can use Menu Math during a unit on linear equations, and then use the same structure during a unit on geometry or statistics.

How do instructional routines support students?

Instructional routines help reduce students’ cognitive load and increase their capacity to do and learn mathematics.

1. Clarify Expectations from the Start

Instructional routines clarify expectations and reduce uncertainty, allowing students to focus on math—not directions. A routine like Which One Doesn’t Belong? always begins with comparing four items. That helps students know what to expect so they don’t have to guess about the process or goals each time. Students can focus on reasoning and justification instead.

In a Number Talk, students learn to expect a process:

• • silently solve
  • share answers
  • explain thinking
  • compare strategies

Through repetition, this structure becomes familiar and automatic. Students don’t have to consciously remember what to do—they can dive right into the math.

2. Reduce Working Memory Demands

A routine like Visual Patterns walks students through a predictable thinking sequence:

• • notice patterns
  • share
  • predict
  • draw
  • generalize

Since students don’t need to remember the process each time, they can use their working memory to make observations and explore the math deeply.

3. Provide Predictability

Routines used consistently signal to students how the activities will go. This lowers anxiety and helps students settle into a mathematical mindset. The calm predictability helps learners, especially those with math anxiety.

4. Make Space for Complex Thinking

Because these routines have no “correct” answer and follow a familiar pattern, students can stretch their thinking—asking questions, exploring patterns, and connecting concepts—without worrying about doing the activity “wrong.”

5. Create a Sense of Safety and Belonging

When students know how a routine works and feel successful with it, they gain confidence. This emotional stability reduces stress and lets them persist through more challenging parts of the lesson that follow.

Some advice on choosing an instructional routine:

• Start small. Choose one or two to try over the course of a semester and reflect on the impact on your students. What did you learn about your students’ ways of thinking? Did you notice any shifts in your students’ independence or self-concept as math learners? How did students respond to the structure of the routine—did they seem more settled, curious, or willing to take risks? Did the routine help you focus more on student thinking than on managing the activity?
• Try each one a few times. Routines become more powerful when students know what to expect. It will take a little time for students and teachers to get used to a routine. Be patient.
• Don’t limit routines to warm-ups. They are even more useful when connected to the core concepts and content you are exploring with your students. When sense-making routines are used separately from the actual content of the lesson, teachers run the risk that (a) students get the message that their sense-making is not “real math” and (b) the confidence students build through the routine doesn’t connect to the core content of the lesson.