About Us
ASSISTments is a nonprofit organization made up of educators, learning scientists, and software engineers dedicated to improving student learning through teacher-paced, evidence-based online technology.
Our Mission is to impact advancements in math instruction to make teaching and learning more evidence-based and aligned to the diverse needs of students.
Our Vision is for every student to be seen, supported, and successful in math class.
Our Core Values
Learning for All — Especially Those Furthest From Opportunity We exist to help every student succeed in math, with an intentional focus on students who need us most. We design for the margins: students performing below grade level, multilingual learners, students with disabilities, and those in under-resourced or rural schools. When we build for the students who face the greatest barriers, we strengthen learning for all.
Research, Data, and Learning We distinguish ourselves through evidence, insight, and continuous learning. ASSISTments’ strength is grounded in its research foundation. We learn by listening to users, studying impact, running experiments, and reflecting. Evidence — not assumptions — drives our decisions and makes our work credible to teachers, districts, and funders.
Excellence and Shared Accountability We strive for our best — and help each other get there. We hold high standards because our work affects real classrooms and real learning. Excellence is not perfectionism — it is care. We commit to clear expectations, consistent follow-through, and owning our work. We support one another in doing work that is thoughtful, rigorous, and centered on student impact.
Transparency and Authenticity We communicate openly and act with honesty, clarity, and integrity. We build trust by communicating the “why,” sharing constraints and trade-offs, and avoiding jargon. Authenticity means saying the truth, even when it’s nuanced — and ensuring our actions match our words. Transparency creates fairness, alignment, and belonging.
Belonging, Respect, and Collaboration We value every person’s perspective and create space for people to contribute fully. We treat people with dignity and assume positive intent. We listen first, seek to understand different backgrounds and lived experiences, and collaborate across teams. Belonging is essential for high performance — people do their best work when they feel respected, included, and valued.
Our Equity Statement
We at ASSISTments acknowledge the long history of systemic racism in our education system, and strive to create equitable opportunities and improve math learning outcomes for historically marginalized student populations.
We continuously work to improve our impact by hiring diverse staff to consistently bring multifaceted perspectives to our work and by partnering with a diverse pool of teachers, students and researchers. Through our open availability, product design, and teacher support, we strive to bring forth educational equity and empower teachers with the tools, data, and training necessary to meet the needs of all students.
Originally Developed at WPI
ASSISTments was developed in 2003 by husband and wife team, Neil and Cristina Heffernan, who began their careers as middle school math teachers in the 1990s. It was then that they identified a need for more effective student feedback and data-driven insights to inform classroom instruction. The Heffernans were early believers in educational technology that works with teachers and students.
The platform is offered completely free of charge. By providing feedback assistance to students and assessment data to teachers, ASSISTments has been able to increase student learning and make homework and classwork more effective for all teachers and students.
In 2019, the Heffernans founded The ASSISTments Foundation to scale up and expand ASSISTments; a solution given the highest marks of a US Department of Education-hosted study on “what works in education.” The ASSISTments Foundation, which was developed at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, works in partnership with the various ASSISTments research and innovation projects at WPI, led by Heffernan. As a professor and computer scientist, Heffernan has received over $50 million in federal and philanthropic funding to support making research-backed impact with ASSISTments, which is dedicated to supporting free and open educational resources, and is compatible with a growing number of curricula used nationwide.
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Charitable Number: 83-4228740
