IM Certified® Blog
The Story of Kindergarten
By Alexandra Clayton Many 5 year olds love to tell you (and show you) how high they can count. This skill of rote counting, saying the counting words in the same order each time, is a lot like singing the ABCs . While students may sing “l-m-n-o-p”, they may not know...
Using IM Algebra 1 Extra Support Materials to Address Unfinished Learning: An Example
By IM Professional Learning Team How do we attend to unfinished teaching and learning, while attending to grade-level expectations? Algebra 1 is often called a “gatekeeper.” Successful completion of Algebra 1 unlocks options for students on the road to becoming...
Two Recommendations to Elevate Instruction
By Kate Nowak, IM Vice President of Curriculum Development and Portfolio “The more intensely interested a teacher is in a student’s thinking, the more interested the student becomes in his or her own thinking.”—Eleanor Duckworth If you’re reading this you probably...
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,...
