Accouting for agency in teaching mathematics: understanding teachers’ use of reform curriculum

Abstract

TEACHING AND LEARNING

ACCOUTING FOR AGENCY IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS:

UNDERSTANDING TEACHERS’ USE OF

REFORM CURRICULUM

ERIK WILLIAM BOWEN

Thesis under the direction of Professor Kay McClain This study provides analysis of modified teaching sets conducted with three fifth-grade mathematics teachers. The teaching sets were designed to provide information on teachers’ current instructional practice in mathematics. Specifically, the role that reform curriculum plays in supporting teachers’ reconceptualization of their practice is analyzed. A major finding is that the reform curriculum teachers implemented became the only resource for instruction. Student reasoning was essentially a peripheral feature to their online classroom instruction, even though the teachers believed it to be central. This finding suggests that the common practice of codifying professional development and rapidly making it the responsibility of other teachers (the “trainer of trainers” models) may not be a viable model for spreading reform without distorting it.

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