By Danielle Seabold All students can be successful in mathematics. For most mathematics educators, we lean into this. We believe that all students can learn mathematics, that they can be successful. However, as we focus our...
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Explorations in IM K–5 Math: Challenges for Curious Students
Mar 2, 2021
By Jen Hawkins and Mike Nakamaye What do we do with curious students who are ready, willing, and able to go further with math ideas? Some students cannot wait to dig deeper into the mathematics they are studying in class....
What Does It Mean to Use Mathematics?
Feb 22, 2021
By William McCallum Our vision at Illustrative Mathematics is a world where all learners know, use, and enjoy mathematics. In my last post I picked up that first verb and talked about what it means to know mathematics. In...
Supporting Culturally Responsive Pedagogy with IM K–5 Math™
Feb 17, 2021
By Dionne Aminata “We are striving to . . . compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.” Poet...
By the End of Grade 3: Developing Fluency with Multiplication
Jan 25, 2021
By Zack Hill The major work of grade 3 includes representing and solving problems that involve multiplication and division. Then, by the end of grade 3, students are expected to know from memory all products of two...
What does it mean to know mathematics?
Jan 4, 2021
By William McCallum A world where all learners know, use, and enjoy mathematics. Perhaps the most mysterious verb in the IM vision—a world where all learners know, use, and enjoy mathematics—is the first one: know. Knowing...
Creating Time and Space for Students to Develop Foundational Mathematical Ideas
Nov 16, 2020
“Slow down, you’re moving too fast, you got to make the morning last...” When we consider early childhood mathematics this familiar song comes to mind. In our hurried society where more is more, childhood expectations have...
Making Sense of Story Problems
Oct 27, 2020
by Deborah Peart, Grade 2 Lead Many people have an aversion to word problems. They cringe at the mention of them. In elementary classrooms, teachers often report that this is what their students struggle with most. When...
Planning for the Student Experience
Sep 4, 2020
by Sarah Caban and Kristin Gray Teachers are so amazing and resilient. Amid all of the many thoughts and feelings about the challenges this school year brings, conversation continually revolves around their students. When...
Facilitating the “Choral Counting” Routine Online
Aug 25, 2020
by Janaki Nagarajan How can we best do mathematics together in an online environment? When school suddenly shifted online last spring, I found myself overwhelmed by the learning curve for new technologies—for both myself...
Helping Elementary Students Cultivate a Strong Math Community
Aug 18, 2020
by LaToya Byrd and Jenna Laib School looks different this year. It’s easy to focus on the changes that will need to be made—the new practices, the new routines, the new technologies—but we must first focus on our central...
Looking to the Fall, Part 2: Creating a Supportive Resource for K–5 Teachers
May 20, 2020
By Kristin Gray, Director K–5 Curriculum and Professional Learningand Kevin Liner, IM K–5 Professional Learning Lead In our previous post, we highlighted important considerations in planning to support students in the fall....
Looking to the Fall, Part 1: Welcoming and Supporting K–5 Students
May 7, 2020
By Kristin Gray, Director K–5 Curriculum and Professional Learningand Kevin Liner, IM K–5 Professional Learning Lead It is overwhelming to think about how teaching and learning will look in the fall. The uncertainty of the...
IM Talking Math
Mar 26, 2020
By Kristin Gray Most importantly, I hope everyone is taking care of themselves, their families, and others as much as they are able to during this time. With schools and districts pushing instruction online with a quick...
Links to Math Resources for Caregivers
Mar 14, 2020
Here is a collection of links the content team here at IM has used with our own students and kids to start mathematical conversations, play math games together, explore new topics, come up with projects, and have fun. There...
Shifting Practices: Helping Everyone—from Students to Administration—Find their Voice in the Math Classroom
Feb 29, 2020
It was easy to say yes! By Crystal Magers Last spring, I was approached by our Math Coordinator and asked about piloting a new math program. I knew my staff was ready for building-wide consistency and we were ready to try...
K–5 Curriculum Design Features that Support Equity and Inclusion
Feb 29, 2020
By Dionne Aminata Before I joined the K–5 curriculum writing team at IM, I was a K–8 regional math content specialist for a public charter organization that largely consisted of Title I schools, or schools receiving federal...
When is a number line not a number line?
Feb 15, 2020
By William McCallum The number line is a seemingly simple object: a straight line with two points marked 0 and 1. Those two points are the seeds of great complexity, however. Whole numbers are located at positions marked...
The Art of Reflection
Feb 3, 2020
“In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.” —Mr. (Fred) Rogers By Kaneka Turner We are...
Using Diagrams to Build and Extend Student Understanding
Nov 25, 2019
By Jenna Laib and Kristin Gray Take a moment to think about the value of each expression below. $\frac{1}{4}\times \frac{1}{3}$ $\frac{1}{4}\times \frac{2}{3}$ $\frac{2}{4}\times \frac{2}{3}$ $\frac{3}{4}\times...
Building a Math Community with IM K–5 Math
Nov 2, 2019
“I’m not sure this is working. Only five of my students are participating and commenting each day. The rest sit there and look at me.” By Tabitha Eutsler This was my conversation with our math coordinator after my first few...
Creating an Accessible Mathematical Community with IM K–5: the power of “yet” for students and adults
Oct 22, 2019
Does the perfect elementary math curriculum exist? Armed with a growth mindset and the Alpha IM K–5 curriculum, teachers in Ipswich Public Schools push their thinking to reach all mathematicians. By Maureen D. O’Connell I...
Using Instructional Routines to Inspire Deep Thinking
Oct 13, 2019
We want students to think about math deeply. Creatively. Analytically. Instead, what often happens is that students race towards quick solutions. So what can we do to support this other kind of thinking in class—the slow,...
Which Vertex is the Center of a Triangle?
Sep 23, 2019
By William McCallum I am sometimes asked what is the secret to the success of our curriculum, what is the special property that sets it apart from other curricula. That question is like the one in the title of this blog...
First Impressions: The First Units in IM K–5 Math
Jul 23, 2019
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”? Maya Angelou By Kristin Gray When I think back to my 8th grade math class, I...
Realizing the promise of open resources, part II
Jun 17, 2019
By William McCallum In my first post on the topic of realizing the promise of open educational resources, I described the IM Certified program. Our partners offer multiple versions, including a free online version and...
Storytelling in the IM K-5 Math Curriculum
Jun 4, 2019
By Kristin Gray, Director of K–5 Curriculum & Professional Learning Curriculum "An excellent mathematics program includes a curriculum that develops important mathematics along coherent learning progressions and...
The Power of Small Ideas
May 21, 2019
By William McCallum, IM President Big ideas are popular in mathematics education, and you can find many lists of big ideas on the web. Some are more thoughtful than others, and I can see how some might be useful for...
Designing Coherent Learning Experiences K-12
May 7, 2019
By Kristin Gray, Director of K–5 Curriculum & Professional Learning One challenge in curriculum design is considering all we know and believe to be true about math teaching and learning and translating that into...
What is a Measurable Attribute?
Apr 8, 2019
By Kristin Umland,VP Content Development A great conversation I had with the IM elementary school curriculum writing team got me thinking: What is a measurable attribute? That is, when given an object, what can we measure...
IM K-5 Math: Designing for Each Student
Feb 26, 2019
By Noelle Conforti Preszler and Kristin Gray In the following activity, think about the students in your classroom. How might each respond? What do you notice? What do you wonder? This activity is the drafted warm-up of the...
Realizing the promise of open resources
Jan 25, 2019
By William McCallum All of our curriculum here at Illustrative Mathematics is released under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license, which allows anyone to "copy and redistribute the material in any medium or...
The Power of Noticing and Wondering
Dec 3, 2018
My first years of teaching, I worried my students looked at me much like Ben Stein as the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I cringe to think about the series of monotonous and leading questions I strung together to a...
Planning for Meaningful Practice
Sep 19, 2018
There is no shortage of available math resources for teachers to use in their classrooms. The difficult and time-consuming job for teachers is weeding through all of the tools to decide which best supports students in...
IM Preparing for the School Year
Aug 6, 2018
There are always so many things to do in preparation for a new school year. At this point of the summer, to-do lists start getting made, materials get purchased, rooms are organized, and math class planning begins....
The IM 6–8 Math Curriculum Changed My Math Methods Experience
Jun 4, 2018
By Anna Polsgrove When I first started the Math Methods course at University of California, Irvine, all of my ideas on how to learn math took a complete 180. During the first two months, a million questions swirled in my...
NCSM and NCTM 2018 Roundup
Apr 30, 2018
It was great to see so many of you at NCSM and NCTM. If we missed you, or you weren’t able to attend, read our NCSM and NCTM round-up below. We enjoyed the conversations we had with those of you that are using the IM 6–8...
Using Math Routines to Build Number Sense in First Grade
Apr 3, 2018
By Allison Van Voy When I started teaching four years ago, I had no idea how important number sense was to a student’s math understanding. I was fresh out of college, brand new to teaching, and number sense was not a...
Warm-up Routines With a Purpose
Feb 27, 2018
By Kristin Gray As a teacher, curiosity around students’ mathematical thinking was the driving force behind the teaching and learning in my classroom. To better understand what they were thinking, I needed to not only have...
Adapting Problems to Elicit Student Thinking
Feb 18, 2018
By Jody Guarino As a teacher, I constantly wonder how I can elicit student thinking in order to gain insight into the current thinking of my students and leverage their thoughts and ideas to build mathematical...
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...
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RECENT POSTS
- The Joy of Fluency April 5, 2021
- A Circumference By Any Other Name… March 31, 2021
- Building Equitable Learning Environments for Each Student March 22, 2021
- Explorations in IM K–5 Math: Challenges for Curious Students March 2, 2021
- What Does It Mean to Use Mathematics? February 22, 2021
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