6i Lens

6i Lens · Founded by Keiron Phillips

Why did the student still get it wrong?

Keiron Phillips started asking that as a classroom teacher in New York City and Washington, DC. He kept asking it as he worked from Math Intervention Teacher to Elementary Principal, and he still teaches sixth-grade mathematics. 6i Lens is what he built to answer it: research, methods, software, and learning materials that connect assessment evidence to classroom instruction in K-12 schools and districts.

Read Keiron’s story See the research themes Open the App Suite

What we see

Recognizing an answer is not the same as building one.

Students often choose a correct answer far more readily than they can produce one on their own. A single proficiency score hides that difference. Our work starts there, and from items and results New York State has released publicly, not from impressions.

See the research themes →

Where it started

The question that turned into a method.

“A kid gets content-specific instruction, aligned to the state test, and still gets the wrong answer. Nobody ever tells them exactly why, or tells the teacher exactly what to do differently in small-group instruction to move that kid from misunderstanding to mastery.”

Keiron Phillips

Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Keiron taught in New York City and Washington, DC, then spent 2011 to 2018 working from Math Intervention Teacher to Elementary Principal of a K-5 division. Before 6i Lens was software, it was how he ran a building.

Keiron’s story and record  ·  About 6i Lens

Research

Selected Research Themes

We study recurring problems in mathematics learning, assessment, and instruction. Selected themes are shared publicly; methods, datasets, and detailed findings remain private until publication.

Theme

Assessment Design & Cognitive Demand

What assessment questions really ask of students, and what a score can and cannot tell a teacher or a school.

Theme

Student Reasoning & Misconceptions

Treating a wrong answer as evidence of thinking, so instruction can respond to the reasoning and not only to the score.

Theme

Instructional Design from Evidence

Helping assessment evidence become planning decisions that teachers can act on in the classroom.

Theme

Mathematical Language & Representation

How students read, write, and move between the words, symbols, and pictures of mathematics.

Research and publication status →

The method

One lens, three moves.

Most students don’t struggle because they can’t do the work. They come apart at a specific point where content meets concept. The three moves below find that point, act on it, and keep it from reopening.

  1. 01

    See exactly where it breaks.

    You get the standard, the item, and the specific misconception behind a wrong answer, instead of a grade-level label you can’t teach from.

  2. 02

    Reach for the right move.

    The canonical strategy, the bridge, the manipulative, matched to the break you just found.

  3. 03

    Make the gain hold.

    The practice and the tools run off the same method, so a fix made in October still holds in May, across a classroom, a grade, and a school.

The Six Intelligences →All methods →

Products

Six apps that run on the same method.

Software for the classroom, the building, and the front office, plus learning materials such as the 6i Visual Mathematics Lexicon.

App

Diagnostics

The diagnostic engine. Surfaces where content meets concept, by standard and misconception.

App

Signature

Reads what each wrong answer on an item reveals.

App

Rounds

Instructional rounds. Classroom walkthroughs and observation capture.

App

Roll Call

Local-first classroom OS. The moving parts of a room at full speed.

App

Chair

The PreK-12 master scheduler. The schedule you build stays in your browser.

App

Threshold

Planned: card-swipe attendance at the door. Paused, not available now.

All products →Visual Mathematics Lexicon →

Who it’s for

One lens. Three ways to use it.

The same diagnostic data answers three different first questions, depending on where you sit: the district office, the building, or the room itself.

District & instructional leadership

See the collapse before it’s a headline.

One diagnosis rolls up from item to classroom to school, so a curriculum decision rests on where students actually break, not on a proficiency band.

Principals & instructional coaches

Walk into a room already knowing where to look.

Rounds and the diagnostic data share one method, so a walkthrough finds the same gap a test already flagged, instead of two separate stories about the same classroom.

Teachers

Get the next move, not just the score.

A wrong answer comes back with the standard, the misconception, and the strategy that closes it, so a Tuesday planning period is spent teaching, not decoding a report.

Questions

What people ask before they start.

Does 6i Lens replace our curriculum or benchmark tests?

No. It sits alongside what you already run. The diagnostic finds the exact standard and misconception behind a score; your curriculum and your benchmark stay in place. 6i Lens tells you where to aim them.

How is this different from a universal screener we already use?

Most screeners hand back a proficiency band. 6i Lens hands back the standard, the item, and the specific misconception, and it distinguishes a multiple-choice score from a constructed-response one. That gap, not the average, is usually where the real problem lives.

What happens to student data?

6i Diagnostics runs against a written privacy policy, FERPA notice, and data privacy agreement template, published in full and outside any login wall. Read the Privacy Policy, the FERPA Notice, or the full set at diagnostics.6i-lens.com/legal before you sign anything.

How is 6i Lens priced?

Pricing is scoped to the grade bands and schools you’re bringing in, not a flat rate. Start a conversation and we’ll work out a number together.

What does getting started actually look like?

There’s no fixed rollout script. A conversation figures out which app you start with, which grade bands come first, and what your calendar can actually hold, before anything gets scheduled.

Work with 6i Lens

Bring the practice to your school.

Start with the diagnostic, add the moves that act on what it finds, then the systems that keep the gains from slipping. Write to us and we’ll work out where your school begins.

Start a conversationadmin@6i-lens.com