IM Certified® Blog
Math Language Routines: Discourse with a Purpose
By Dr. Kristen Taylor, IM Certified® Facilitator Math teachers can talk all day about math! We get super excited when we encounter someone else who enjoys these conversations as well. But too many of our students don’t get to experience that joyful discourse, which...
Leveraging IM 6–12 Math Teacher Materials to Enhance Access to Grade-Level Mathematics
By Vanessa Cerrahoglu and Danielle Seabold, IM Certified® Facilitators Illustrative Mathematics (IM) believes each student has brilliant mathematical ideas has experiences and ideas that are valuable can make sense of and solve problems can learn grade-level...
The Story of Grade 1
By Brianne Durst Grade 1 teachers have the awesome responsibility of introducing their students to, and helping them build an understanding of, the structure of our number system. This is no small task! Just think about how many tasks in later years depend on an...
A Thread Through Early Algebra 1
By David Petersen, 6–12 Curriculum Specialist andAshli Black, Director, 6–12 Curriculum The Algebra 1 course in IM 9–12 Math™ begins with a unit on one-variable statistics, a choice that many find surprising. Why start with statistics? And where does it go from there?...
Revisiting Distance Learning with IM K–12 Math™
With the surge of the Omicron variant, many schools are moving back to distance learning. Although we may not be excited to leave our classrooms again, we are better prepared for distance learning this time around. Most, if not all, educators have experienced teaching...
Taking the Long View
By William McCallum A few weeks ago, my wife and I took a 17-day rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. We descended through the layers of rock, from the 270 million year old Kaibab sedimentary layer of chert, dolomite, limestone, and sandstone all the way through to...
What Does IM Think About Unfinished Learning and Supporting Students with a Variety of Entry Points? (Grades 6–12)
By the IM Team In a class of 25 students, there are 25 different learners with 25 different backgrounds. Students come into the classroom with varied experiences with school, with mathematical content, and with life. While this has been true for time immemorial,...
In the Beginning: Unit 1 in Kindergarten
By Alex Clayton When was the last time you stepped into an entirely new environment? You weren’t sure exactly what was going to happen. There was no one you recognized. How did you feel: Uncertain? Anxious? Hopeful? During morning circle on the first day of...
Illustrative Mathematics Celebrates 10 Years: Letter from the CEO
2021 marks our 10th anniversary at Illustrative Mathematics, and we couldn’t be more proud to have impacted so many hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, and families since our humble beginnings in 2011. Our business has changed dramatically over the past...
Using IM K–5 Math™ to Support Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI)
By Mike Henderson “The activities require skills that students are not taught prior to doing the activity. They’re expected to just jump right in. Why isn’t there more modeling or re-teaching of basic skills so students can be successful with the lesson?” As teachers...
