What is the Nebraska Instructional Materials Collaborative (NIMC)?
The Nebraska Instructional Materials Collaborative, or NIMC, highlights high-quality, standards-aligned instructional materials and offers Nebraska-specific guidance documents to ensure materials meet the expectations of Nebraska’s Content Area Standards. Through the NIMC, the NDE and key partners are committed to providing statewide leadership that informs and supports the decisions made locally related to curriculum and instructional materials.
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Purpose
Every Nebraska student deserves the opportunity to learn from high-quality, standards-aligned instructional materials to prepare for success in college, career, and civic life. Through the Nebraska Instructional Materials Collaborative, the Nebraska Department of Education and key partners, we are committed to providing statewide leadership that informs and supports the decisions made locally related to curriculum and instructional materials
New Graphic for NIMC (something like this?)
NIMC Addresses the Achievement Gap
NIMC promotes equitable access to high-quality educational materials statewide, supporting all students in mastering state standards while also exploring their personal interests. By providing resources and training, NIMC aims to close the achievement gap, especially for low-income students who may lack access to quality content.
NIMC Provides Support for Teachers
NIMC provides essential support for teachers transitioning to standards-aligned resources. By offering HQIM training, NIMC empowers teachers to enhance student success through strengthened content knowledge, better lesson planning, and collaboration. NIMC also addresses challenges posed by inconsistent materials, as many teachers rely on self-sourced content with varying quality and commercial resources which often lack true standards alignment.
NIMC Increases Capacity for Districts
NIMC enhances district capacity by providing standards-aligned materials and offering professional development to ensure effective use in classrooms. Currently, NIMC resources support Nebraska’s English Language Arts and Math standards, with plans to expand into science, social studies, arts, and world languages. Adopting these high-quality materials is a cost-effective strategy, often cost-neutral and potentially saving money, especially as free resources from the Open Educational Resources Collaborative (OER) are available.
NIMC Provides Resources for Decision-Making
The Nebraska Instructional Materials Collaborative (NIMC) offers essential tools, such as the EQuIP rubric and IMET, to help educators evaluate lesson quality and curriculum alignment. Through a partnership with EdReports, NIMC provides independent reviews of instructional materials, highlighting those that meet Nebraska’s standards. These resources and guidance documents streamline the selection process, saving educators valuable time in identifying quality materials
In Nebraska, effective teaching and learning requires five key components that are integral to the Nebraska Instructional Materials Collaborative.
Definitions
Content area standards describe what students are expected to know and be able to do. Content area standards outline the content and process skills students will learn in grades K-12. Nebraska content area standards include two components: standards and indicators.
A curriculum is determined locally and reflects “how” teachers help students learn the content within content area standards. A curriculum outlines the intended outcomes, content, experiences, assessments, and resources for measuring student learning, and it also includes the scope and sequence of what is taught in grades K-12.
Instructional materials are the tools and resources that are used as part of a locally-determined curriculum.
Assessments are the multiple measures (formative, interim, and summative) used to gather evidence of student learning relative to content area standards.
During classroom instruction, a teacher implements the locally-determined curriculum, including instructional materials, and uses evidence-based teaching methods and strategies to engage students to support student learning of content area standards.