IM Certified® Blog
What Is Right About Wrong Answers?
When I first started teaching, at the end of each day, I would open my teacher’s guide, grab my pen, and thumb through the stack of completed worksheets. My eyes would dart quickly from the red answers in the teacher’s guide to the corresponding answers on each...
What I Learned Today: Scale Drawings & Maps
I asked my 15-year-old what she learned today at school. She paused for a moment and then answered, “What did you learn at school today?” It took me a while to think about what I had learned (which will make me more patient when I ask her again tomorrow), and then I...
The IM Curriculum Changed How I Think About Math Instruction
Growing up we usually think we are either a math person or not a math person. But, in preparing for this year I saw a picture that said ‘How to be a math person: Step 1: Do math Step 2: Be a person’ and I really started to look at math differently. I’ve been teaching...
Planning to Use Pre-Unit Assessments
Time to start a new unit! What do you need to know before your students enter the room? NCTM’s Principles to Actions names several productive beliefs about assessments that will promote mathematical success for all. At the top of the list is that the “primary purpose...
IM Preparing for the School Year
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. Whether you are using the IM 6–8 Math...
Building a Mathematical Classroom Community
Classroom environments that foster a sense of community that allows students to express their mathematical ideas—together with norms that expect students to communicate their mathematical thinking to their peers and teacher, both orally and in writing, using the...
Fractions: Units and Equivalence
By William McCallum “I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?” Alice in Wonderland. The idea of equivalence in mathematics is tricky for learners, because when we talk about two things being equivalent, for example the fractions...
5th Grade: Decimal Place Value
By Kristin Gray There are some standards I think we do such a great job developing in early elementary, but never revisit explicitly when students learn about different numbers such as fractions and decimals. I blogged about this in reference to even and odd numbers...
The Intersection of Fraction Talks and Clothesline Math: Formative Assessment and the 5 Practices
By Jenna Laib My sixth graders are weary of pre-assessments. No matter how many times we discuss the goal of a pre-assessment–for me to learn more about their current strategies and understandings, so that I can design learning experiences that fit them better–all of...
The IM 6–8 Math Curriculum Changed My Math Methods Experience
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 head as I worked through problems with my...