By Sadie Estrella May 2016 seems so long ago. I actually had to look it up on a calendar because I really thought it was more than 1.41666years ago. That was when I officially started this journey with Illustrative Mathematics. Our kickoff meeting was in Chicago....
6–8 Math
Respecting the Intellectual Work of the Grade
Nov 30, 2017
By Kate Nowak A thing that I think we did really well in Illustrative Mathematics 6–8 Math was attend carefully to really deep, important things that adults that already know math can easily overlook. For example, what does an equation mean? What does it...
Assessment Principles in Illustrative Mathematics 6-8 Math
Nov 24, 2017
By Bowen Kerins A wide-ranging team worked together to develop the Illustrative Mathematics Grades 6-8 Math curriculum. As Assessment Lead, it was my responsibility to write and curate the Shared Understandings document about assessments we used throughout...
Reflection & Discussions in Grade 8, Part 1
Oct 12, 2017
By Ashli Black Woo, blogging! As I start work on high school curriculum, I thought I would go back and revisit the grade 8 units that I’ve spent the past 18 months working on and share some of my favorite things. This gives me a chance to think about what sorts of...
Fraction division part I: How do you know when it is division?
Aug 16, 2017
By William McCallum and Kristin Umland In her book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics, Liping Ma wrote about this question and how teachers responded to it: Write a story problem for $1 ¾ \div ½$. [Pause here and think about the answer yourself.] Many people...
Truth and consequences: talking about solving equations
Jul 19, 2017
By William McCallum The language we use when we talk about solving equations can be a bit of a minefield. It seems obvious to talk about an equation such as $3x + 2 = x + 5$ as saying that $3x+2$ is equal to $x + 5$, and that's probably a good place to start. But...
Misconceptions about Multiple Methods
May 24, 2017
By William McCallum You may have noticed that I am back to publishing regular blog posts! My goal for now is a blog post every second Wednesday. I am now also trying to answer forum questions promptly. I want to thank the readers who took up the slack for the last...
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