IM Certified® Blog
Realizing the promise of open resources, part II
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 enhanced versions with different options for...
Storytelling in the IM K-5 Math Curriculum
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 develops connections among areas of mathematical...
The Power of Small Ideas
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 organizing a curriculum. But few of the ideas I see...
Making Sense of Distance in the Coordinate Plane
By Linda Richard, Curriculum Writer I used to teach my high school students a catchy song to memorize the distance formula. We all had fun goofily singing this song. My students hummed it to themselves during tests and successfully calculated distances. I was pleased...
Designing Coherent Learning Experiences K-12
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 realistic and actionable pieces for teachers and...
Developing Conceptual Understanding and Procedural Fluency
By Melissa Schumacher, Curriculum Writer Which is more important for students to have: conceptual understanding or procedural fluency? Does one have to be taught before the other can emerge? Some argue that procedure has to come first, because without procedural...
NCSM NCTM Recap
Illustrative Mathematics It was great to see so many of you at NCSM and NCTM in San Diego. 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 Math...
What is a Measurable Attribute?
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 about it? Before you jump in with your own...
Rigor in Proofs
By Tina Cardone, Geometry Lead, & Gabriel Rosenberg, Curriculum Writer There is no doubt that proof plays a central role in the human endeavor of mathematics, but there remains much debate on what role it should play in high school mathematics. At least two...
Presenting IM Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2
By Kate Nowak When I was teaching high school mathematics, my local colleagues and I spent a whole lot of time creating problem-based lessons. We were convinced that this style of instruction was a good way to learn, but the textbooks in use at our school simply...
