IM Certified® Blog
10 Ways to Get Students Up and Moving in Math Class
By the Illustrative Mathematics team When we think about math class, it’s easy to picture students sitting at desks, working through problems on paper or screens. But some of the most powerful math learning happens when students are moving, talking, gesturing, and...
From Fragmentation to Coherence: What NYC District 7 Shows About Sustaining Math Improvement
By the Illustrative Mathematics team In New York City’s District 7 in the South Bronx, the story of math instruction used to be one of inconsistency. Classrooms looked different from one another. Teachers pieced together lessons from multiple sources. Students moved...
Recipes, Not Scripts: Finding Balance in Curriculum Implementation
By, Kiran Purohit, EdD, New Visions for Public Schools, Vice President of Curriculum and Instruction and Jennifer Wilson, EdD, Illustrative Mathematics, Senior Director, Implementation Enablement New Visions for Public Schools, an IM Certified® partner, has worked...
From Math Anxiety to Math Confidence (Part 2): How IM® Helps Teachers Move from Fear to Fearless
By Timesha Brooks, Senior Specialist, Professional Learning Design In Part 1, we named the elephant in the room: math anxiety among teachers and how it shapes classroom instruction. Now, we turn to the heart of the work—how teachers build confidence, what helps them...
From Math Anxiety to Math Confidence (Part 1): Naming the Elephant in the Room
By Timesha Brooks, Senior Specialist, Professional Learning Design We often talk about math anxiety when it comes to students. But there's an elephant in the professional development room we rarely name—and even more rarely design for. It’s something nearly every...
Empowering Multilingual Learners in Math
By Rabell Afridi, Math Coach and Lindsey Duff, Gr. 3 SEI Teacher In our multilingual 3rd grade math classroom one afternoon, students hurried to their desks, eager to get started on a problem. Before they were even seated, they were already debating their ideas. The...
What LEGO Taught Us About Play-Based Learning in Transitional Kindergarten
By Cherelle McKnight, Director, PK–6 Content During a virtual writing retreat, IM’s PK–6 content team gathered on Zoom and . . . played. My desk was covered with loose parts—small objects meant for building, arranging, and imagining. At one point, we were invited to...
Staying Curious in Transitional Kindergarten: What Inquiry Play Reveals About How Students Think
By Lindy Olejniczak, PK–6 Content Specialist This past year, I was playing with my friend’s 2.5-year-old sons. The “game” started with bringing colored balls from a ball pit and tossing them to me. As I caught each one, I began arranging them in different ways. At one...
Fluency Development Within and Across the Grades in IM® K–5 Math Part 4: Multiplication and Division
By Sarah Caban, Director, PK–12 Learning Experiences and Dionne Aminata, Former Grade 2–5 Lead Writer“Some students are never given the opportunity to engage with mathematics in rich and meaningful ways that emphasize critical thinking and problem solving. Moreover,...
Fluency Development Within and Across the Grades in IM® K–5 Math Part 3: Multiplication and Division
By Sarah Caban, Director, PK–12 Learning Experiences and Dionne Aminata, Former Grade 2–5 Lead Writer “The idea of being a ‘math person’ is based on two pervasive world views; first, the so-called ‘fixed’ mindset, that what one knows about math cannot change...
