IM Certified® Blog
A Circumference By Any Other Name…
By Becca Phillips You can’t tell a child “there’s no such thing as monsters” because, well, then, why is there a word for it? I was given this advice when my own daughter was an infant, but I’ve thought a lot about it over...
Building Equitable Learning Environments for Each Student
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...
Explorations in IM K–5 Math: Challenges for Curious Students
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?
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™
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...
IM 6–12 Math: Grading and Homework Policies and Practices
By Jennifer Willson, Director, 6–12 Professional Learning Design In my role at IM, working with teachers and administrators, I am asked to help with the challenges of implementing an IM curriculum. One of the most common...
By the End of Grade 3: Developing Fluency with Multiplication
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...
Growing with the IM Community Hub
By Portia Gibbs Roseboro, Britnee Wright, Justin Brennan The IM Community Hub, affectionately known as “The Hub,” was created to support educators using the IM Curriculum in navigating what teaching looks like now....
What does it mean to know mathematics?
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...
Preparing for the Unknown: Our Journey to Virtual Facilitation
By Ashley Powell and Moniquea Willingham The excitement and nervousness in the room was almost palpable! There were approximately forty facilitators present for the 3-day IM K–5 Curriculum training in Dallas, Texas. We...
The Nuances of Understanding a Fraction as a Number
By Kristin Gray This was originally posted on Kristin Gray’s personal blog, Math Minds, on November 15, 2020. Student work is just the best. It is the one thing that will always motivate me to write! So, let’s kick this...
Creating Time and Space for Students to Develop Foundational Mathematical Ideas
By Maureen D. O'Connell “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,...
Reading Graphs is a Complex Skill
by William McCallum Newspapers are full of graphs, far more than 10 or 20 years ago. Indeed, I have a graph to show that! (Source, Priceonomics) And yet I wonder how often readers see graphs as pictures illustrating a...
Making Sense of Story Problems
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...
The Story of Grade 5
by Sarah Caban From the start of the year, we want students to know they are capable of engaging in grade-level mathematics. In the Opportunity Myth (2018), data shows that there is an opportunity gap for historically...
Using IM’s Distance Learning Resources to Create a Hybrid Learning Plan
By Lorie Banks Trying to plan for the 2020–2021 school year has been like trying to fly the airplane while building the wings. I am a career educator—a middle grades math teacher in an urban district in Western...
Planning for the Student Experience
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
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
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...
Equitable Teaching Practices in IM 6–12 Math
by Tina Cardone The vision of Illustrative Mathematics is to create a world where learners know, use, and enjoy mathematics. This raises the question: Which learners? And what role do the authors of a curriculum play in...
English Learners and Distance Learning: Math Language Routines
by Vanessa Cerrahoglu, Jennifer Wilson, and Liz Ramirez We envision creating a world where learners know, use, and enjoy mathematics. Knowing and using math goes beyond calculating and evaluating. We create purposeful...
New IM 6–12 Resources for Addressing Unfinished Learning and Engaging Students in Distance Learning
by David Petersen and Kate Nowak In our previous post, we described how we are thinking about planning for next fall. We are also creating some new resources to support users of IM K–12 Math in the fall. Some of this is to...
Coming Together Around Distance Learning
By William McCallum I can't imagine what it must feel like right now to be a teacher facing the uncharted territory that is the coming school year. Will I be teaching 100% online, or have some face-to-face interaction with...
English Learners and Distance Learning: Compare and Connect
By Vanessa Cerrahoglu, Jennifer Wilson, and Liz Ramirez We envision creating a world where learners know, use, and enjoy mathematics. Knowing and using math goes beyond calculating and evaluating. We create purposeful...
