Updated April 21, 2023
This is a list of commonly asked questions we receive about the New Visions Math curricular resources and the Illustrative Mathematics Curriculum. This list will be revised as we are asked more questions.
Frequently Asked Questions about Illustrative Mathematics
1. Should we use New Visions Algebra I or Illustrative Mathematics Algebra 1?
If you already use the New Visions Algebra I curriculum materials and already have structures in place in your school to use it, then continue to use the curriculum. The site and the materials will still be available for use. However, we will no longer make any revisions or updates to this curriculum.
Because we believe Illustrative Mathematics (IM) offers the most accessible high quality vertically-aligned curriculum available for high school math, we will be supporting the transition and use of curriculum from New Visions Algebra I to Illustrative Mathematics Algebra 1. To support this transition, click here for the crosswalk document.
2. Why Illustrative Mathematics?
Illustrative Mathematics K-12 math curriculum has been designed by a broad range of math education experts, including some of the architects of Common Core. The curricula have gained accolades from Ed Reports, teacher math organizations, and school districts.
The Illustrative Mathematics curriculum includes Instructional Routines and Math Language Routines that embed opportunities for entry, access, and challenge for students, and builds in opportunities for student sense-making.
We believe that the IM curriculum addresses a number of needs and questions about math instruction that were surfaced by schools. This list will certainly grow over time but here are some initial thoughts.
While we see alignment between school concerns and the IM curricula, and while the curricula have been vetted and lauded by a range of stakeholders, ultimately schools need to figure out their own “why” for adopting IM.
There is a growing body of research demonstrating that well-designed, high-quality instructional materials are a key component of developing strong instructional practice across schools and classrooms in a network or district. Curriculum comes alive when teachers, over the course of years, come together to make sense of materials and make them their own through careful tailoring and collaboration around intentional adaptations to the materials and sense-making around student work.
“There is evidence that [student] learning opportunities are more effective when teachers base instruction on well-designed instructional materials and when they are supported to make principled adaptations to instructional materials for tailoring instruction to their students’ needs (cf. Banilower, Boyd, Pasley, & Weiss, 2006; Penuel & Gallagher, 2009).”
We believe that focusing on the adoption of shared, high-quality instructional materials brings teachers and schools together around effective systems capable of producing increasingly reliable, equitable outcomes. There will be broader use and adoption of the IM curriculum in the NYC Public Schools, and therefore greater opportunities for teachers and schools to come together around intentional thinking using this curriculum.
Frequently Asked Questions about New Visions Algebra I Curriculum and Math Resources
1. Do you have a paper version of your curriculum?
We do not have a paper version of our curriculum, nor do we ever intend to have a paper version. First, a paper curriculum would be more difficult for teachers to customize. Second, it is our belief that curriculum should be enacted in ways which respond to student need; it is much more difficult to do this when everything is already sequenced and printed.
2. Do you have scripted daily lessons?
For Algebra I, we have a complete set of Core Resources, each of which contains between 4 and 5 lesson plans that teachers can adapt or modify. These lessons are not scripted but they are intended to provide student materials, a suggested teacher lesson, and other resources for supporting teachers using our curriculum.
For Geometry and Algebra II, go to the Find Resources page to search for materials that can be used in lessons by topic.
We also recommend using the Geometry and Algebra 2 Illustrative Mathematics curriculum. To support this transition, we recommend referencing the Geometry crosswalk document and the Algebra 2 crosswalk document.
3. Why do you use Google Docs?
We use the Google Doc platform for our resources because it is free for teachers and schools to use, the resources are easily made available online since the platform is cloud-based, and because Google Docs make sharing and collaborating around resources much easier than other platforms.
We wrote a guide to help teachers that is available here. This guide should help teachers who want to edit, organize, download, or share the resources we have created.
4. Why do you introduce functions before equations in Algebra I?
The focus of Algebra I overall is functions so we want students to have many opportunities to re-engage with the core ideas of functions. By positioning functions earlier in the curriculum, students get these opportunities automatically. We also want students to connect what they know about functions to equations so students have tools with which to check their work (e.g., graphs and tables).
5. Where did your Algebra I unit sequence come from?
We initially derived our units and the sequence for our units from the Math Design Collaborative work led by Ann Shannon. Over time, these units and the unit sequences have been revised as we learned more about the expectations of New York State and as we developed coherent collections of Big Ideas across the course.
6. What are Instructional Routines?
This page describes Instructional Routines in some detail.
7. What additional supports do you recommend for English as a New Language Learners and students with special needs? And why do you use the phrase 'English as a New Language Learners' anyway?
For a detailed answer to this question, see this page. We use the phrase ‘English as a New Language Learners' to describe students who are learning English as a second (or later) language to remind ourselves and others that these students have a language that they can draw on as an asset both when learning mathematics and learning a new language.
8. Do you have resources for students who need additional support to be ready to take Algebra I?
We include instructional routines within our curriculum students so that all kids have the instructional supports they are likely to need to be successful at Algebra I. If you want dedicated curriculum support for students, we recommend the Transition to Algebra curriculum published by Heinemann and have outlined some resources for this curriculum here.
9. What are Big Ideas?
This page describes what Big Ideas are and includes an argument by Phil Daro which convinced us to organize our curriculum around Big Ideas and not individual lessons.
10. Where are the weekly quizzes for formative assessment?
Creating weekly quizzes is a low priority task for us for a couple of reasons. Primarily, we have evidence that teachers can make quizzes fairly easily, so we prefer to focus on harder to make stuff. Also, our formative assessment work revolves around incorporating all five of Dylan Wiliam’s formative assessment strategies. As an alternative to setting aside instructional time for quizzes, we suggest collecting student work samples each day and analyzing them for evidence of student learning. Then plan to use this work to re-engage students in the mathematics of the week as the “weekly quiz.” This way students can continue to learn mathematics while you simultaneously can collect data to which to respond.
However, if you still need to create weekly quizzes, we recommend using Quiz Banker, which has thousands of Regents questions that we have aligned to our Units and Big Ideas.
11. What about homework assignments?
We do not currently have homework assignments for Geometry and Algebra II. This is partly because this is work that we know teachers are able to do themselves and partly because the evidence of the impact of homework on student learning is mixed. There is some evidence that students benefit from interleaved practice, retrieval practice, and spacing of practice sessions, and so when teachers are designing their homework assignments, they may want to take these strategies into account.
We do have spiraled (or interleaved) practice assignments for Algebra I. These resources can be found in the Resources bar at the top of each unit. These assignments can be used either as additional practice during a lesson or as homework assignments. More information on the design of these practice assignments is available here.
12. Why don’t you have a full curriculum for Geometry and Algebra II?
Writing high-quality curriculum takes time and we have a small team. We have at least one resource for each major topic to give guidance on what lessons that support the topic could look like. You can access these resources on the Finding Resources page. We do not have plans to create additional materials. We also recommend that you use the Instructional Routines for a topic to guide the creation of lessons based on student responses to the content. See question #2 for our rationale.
If you would like to access a full curriculum for Geometry and Algebra II, then we recommend using Illustrative Mathematics, which also supports the vertical alignment of the content from Algebra 1 to Geometry to Algebra 2.
13. What direction is your curriculum going?
We are no longer updating the New Visions Algebra I curriculum. Our objective was to create a curriculum that allows teachers to respond to students with meaningful instruction and useful tasks, and the current Algebra I course materials allows for this work to take place.
We believe that Illustrative Mathematics (IM) offers the most accessible high quality vertically-aligned curriculum available for high school math. Since IM is also a Core Curriculum option for NYC Public Schools, our math professional learning and coaching going forward will focus on the adoption and implementation of IM. To support this transition, see this crosswalk document.
14. What about the new standards (shift from the Common Core Learning Standards to the NYS Next Generation Mathematics Learning Standards)?
Since most of the standards are similar to the Common Core Learning Standards, with a few major shifts, which are viewable in more detail on the New York State Next Generation Mathematics Learning Standards Crosswalks documents released by the state, the impact to the Algebra I curriculum materials will be minimal. Here is access to the Implementation Timeline.
We are no longer updating the New Visions Algebra I curriculum. Any support or guidance around the implementation of curriculum and the impact of the standards shifts will be reflected in our support of the Illustrative Mathematics curriculum adoption. To support this transition, see this crosswalk document.
15. What is the license of your curricular materials?
New Visions resources are licensed under a Creative Commons, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (the fine print).
You are free to:
Share — Copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
Adapt — Remix, transform and build upon the material.
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
Resources created by our partners may be governed under different licenses and permissions.