Our Story
A Simple Solution to a Big Problem
My name is Torrey Volk; I am the founder of MasterTrack and a former middle school math teacher. As a teacher, I found myself struggling to reach the wide range of learners in my classroom because my students often lacked the foundational skills necessary to succeed in middle school math.
A few years later, I received my master’s degree in Educational Technology and started my own business to help elementary schools integrate technology in their classrooms. I worked with many K-8 math teachers in different schools and heard them sharing the same struggle—every year, incoming students arrived at classrooms lacking the foundational math skills necessary to succeed at their current grade level.
As an avid problem solver, I went straight to work trying to solve this pervasive problem. I began by working with schools to identify the foundational math skills necessary for each grade level. We started by using the 2006 National Council Teachers Mathematics (NCTM) grade level focus standards as a baseline and have since adapted these standards to align with the varied requirements in different public, private, or charter school settings.
After identifying the pre-requisite foundational math skills for each grade level, we then developed short, formative, paper and pencil assessments to assess each skill. We hoped to find an existing technology platform that could allow teachers to both track (and then respond) to student performance on these assessments but could find nothing. In 2012, two “angel” software developers helped us build MasterTrack, an online progress monitoring tool developed to do just that.
Today, MasterTrack’s online progress monitoring tool enables teachers to easily identify gaps in student learning every week and complements any math curriculum. MasterTrack’s reports allow teachers, principals, and district leaders to review and analyze progress along the way with the click of a button.
MasterTrack is proud to partner with ReThink Mathematics and Abacus Consulting. Together, we provide innovative virtual data coaching, engaging resources, and professional development to help building leaders and classroom teachers respond to student learning needs and maximize student achievement.
MasterTrack Solutions is a small, Seattle-based educational technology company dedicated to helping students, educators, and schools succeed every day.