By Claire Neely, Senior Implementation Specialist
Illustrative Mathematics’ redesigned IMplementation Reflection Tool (IRT) is a powerful, non-evaluative resource intended to shape the way your school adopts and implements IM Certified® Math. With research-backed recommendations for administrators, leaders, and teachers, the IRT provides guidance for optimizing school systems, enhancing collaboration, and improving learning outcomes for every student. Though the IRT has always provided guidance for supporting strong curriculum implementation, we’ve revamped the latest version to deliver even more support around the structures, systems, mindsets, and practices to make problem-based teaching and learning successful in your school. Here’s what’s changed:
- Systemic Leadership: Section A features updated indicators that reflect the practices of experienced instructional leaders who have led successful IM Certified Math implementation in their schools and districts.
- Collaborative Planning: Section B highlights collaborative practices to underscore the importance of teacher partnership in supporting your implementation journey.
- Classroom Implementation: Section C includes detailed descriptors to demonstrate what IM Certified Math looks and sounds like in the classroom. and sounds like in the classroom.
Let’s take a closer look.
Section A: Systemic Leadership
Formerly called School Implementation, we’ve retitled this section Systemic Leadership, reflecting the critical role leaders play in organizing the systems within their own schools to support implementation. Section A is broken down into two strands: A1. Leading Implementation lays out the responsibilities of leaders to:
- set and share a vision for math teaching and learning
- establish an ongoing process for collecting implementation data
- remove barriers that may impede implementation
- learn the principles and practices of problem-based instruction
- align supplementary curriculum resources to IM Certified Math
School administrators who successfully implement IM see themselves as the key instructional leader leading this change. A2. Leading Collaborative Learning emphasizes the importance of long-term planning around staff professional learning. We’ve stressed the need for professional learning conducted by a skilled facilitator to align to the school vision and adapt to educators’ evolving needs. Instructional leaders play a key role in structuring the school schedule to allow for frequent and meaningful teacher collaboration aligned to school and district priorities. We also condensed the progression of practice in this section from four levels to three to better meet the needs of school leaders in reflecting on school-wide curriculum implementation. Along with Section B, the indicators in Section A contain three levels: organizing, developing, and implementing.
Section B: Collaborative Learning
Updated from Team Implementation to Collaborative Learning, Section B expanded from two strands to three to emphasize the connection between teacher partnership and improved instructional outcomes. B1. Collaboration promotes the establishment of team working agreements and shared goals. Creating a highly effective team with these elements in place allows teachers to engage in peer observation and feedback, analysis of student work, reflection on instructional practices, and co-planning at the unit and lesson level. B2. Unit Planning and B3. Lesson Planning outline key curriculum elements that teachers can use both together and independently to strengthen their problem-based instruction. These include course guides, section narratives, unit pacing guides, formative assessment data, and family support materials.
Section C: Classroom Implementation
Section C of the IMplementation Reflection Tool continues to house the fundamentals of problem-based instruction from the perspective of teachers and learners. C1. Equitable Instructional Practices is a new strand underscoring the role of classroom climate in fostering student learning and shifting mathematical authority from teacher to student. We’ve focused on observable teacher actions that build a classroom culture in which students feel safe to try out new ideas, share and revise their thinking, and collaborate with their peers. C2. Lesson Facilitation describes how teachers can apply the elements of IM lessons to enhance learning outcomes for students. Specifically, we’ve emphasized:
- using problem-based instructional strategies and math language routines
- accommodating student needs to ensure access
- structuring student discussion
- launching activities
- facilitating syntheses
- using learning centers (grades K–5)
C3. Student Learning Behaviors remains largely unchanged. Indicators focus on student actions you’re likely to see in classrooms where learners are empowered to be inquisitive, make connections, engage in rich discourse, persevere through challenges, and collaborate with peers. Unlike Sections A and B, the progression of practice in Section C contains four levels. We found that having only three levels did not capture enough detail to allow for purposeful and reflective discussions around implementation. As a result, indicators in strands C1 and C2 show the progression of emerging, progressing, implementing, and integrating levels for teacher actions. Student learning behaviors still use receiving, reacting, interacting, and belonging to show progression.
Using the IRT
As you explore the tool, you may find that for your role you’ll primarily use one section or choose to focus on only a few indicators in a given school year. Principals, instructional leaders, and members of a curriculum adoption and implementation committee might choose to begin by looking at Section A. Folks in these roles can download a PDF of Section A or access an editable note catcher of Section A. Instructional coaches and teacher leaders may access a PDF or editable note catcher of Section B to examine indicators around collaboration. Classroom teachers and anyone observing a lesson may choose to get started with the PDF or editable note catcher of Section C. If you’re already familiar with the IRT, explore the crosswalk that maps previous versions to the newest one to understand the reorganization and expansion of the indicators.
Next Steps
Access the latest version here, or check out our new IRT website to plan how to take charge of your IM implementation journey today.
November 2024: Thank you to those who brought the C1 and C2 progression of practice to our attention. We’ve corrected the progression in those sections, replacing developing with progressing.
Claire Neely
Senior Implementation Specialist
Claire Neely (she/her) received an MS in educational studies with a specialization in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University. Claire has spent her career in education teaching and coaching mathematics in schools of all kinds: Title I, charter, language immersion, traditional public, Montessori, K–8, middle, and high schools. After transitioning out of schools and into professional learning, Claire now serves as a senior specialist on the Implementation Portfolio team creating resources that support math coaches, curriculum specialists, and administrators with IM implementation.
