Early career elementary teachers’ practices & perceptions related to language & language learners

There has been limited attention to early career teachers’ (ECTs) understandings and practices related to language in teaching and learning mathematics. In this qualitative case study, we drew upon frameworks for teacher noticing to study the language practices of six early career elementary and middle school mathematics teachers. We describe multiple themes that cut across teachers’ noticing related to language and language learners, and discuss one theme (i.e., Perspectives on multiple languages) in more detail, including evidence of specific forms of noticing. Implications for teacher education and professional development are discussed

Fostering the Process of Becoming a Deliberate Practitioner An Investigation of Preservice Teachers during Student Teaching

This study examined the efficacy of a student teaching internship component of a teacher education program in fostering the development of reflective practitioners by investigating the experiences of preservice teachers in the program. The study noted the extent to which the various requirements of the student teachers' internships (e.g., journal writing, weekly goal setting, observing other teachers, lesson and unit planning, conducting action research projects, and conferencing with field specialist teachers) contributed to their reflecting on practice. Two preservice elementary teachers were studied during their semester-long student teaching internship. Data collection involved audiotaped interviews with participants and conferences with their field specialist; reflective journal entries and weekly goal statements; lesson and unit plans; data from action research projects; and final research reports. Results indicate that requirements for field experiences must be tailored to meet preservice teachers' individual learning needs and approaches. For example, action research projects were useful in terms of preservice teachers' professional development, though one participant did not consider the experience valuable. Participants also differed in how they benefitted from journal writing and observing other teachers. (Contains 25 references.) (SM

The Elementary Science Teacher as Researcher

It can reasonably be argued that the primary role of elementary teachers is to prepare their students to be literate adults, and thus many are literacy specialists. Often these teachers lack confidence in science and avoid it because it is not their specialty. Most elementary teachers have never conducted a scientific inquiry, yet they are being asked to teach science as inquiry. Though an action research project is not the same as a scientific inquiry, it can still provide an experience similar to scientific inquiry for teachers. Therefore, an appropriate strategy for fulfilling both a need to engage in inquiry and a need for professional development in science teaching would be to prepare teachers to use action or teacher research in their teaching practice. This paper describes the action research projects completed as part of a Masters in Teaching two-year program. The projects focus on investigating a specific teaching strategy or approach. (Contains 31 references.) (Author/MVL

Common Core State Standards for Mathematics: Middle School Teachers’ Perceptions

In spring 2013, we surveyed the perceptions of 403 middle school mathematics teachers with regard to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010). The CCSSM have now been adopted by 45 states, the District of Columbia, and four U.S. territories as of May 2013 and, as a result, constitute a U.S. national intended curriculum in mathematics (Porter, McMaken, Hwang, & Yang, 2010). The overall findings suggest: (1) Middle school mathematics teachers can benefit from professional development that focuses on how to meaningfully incorporate the Mathematical Practice Standards; (2) Professional development needs to focus on pointing out new content compared with previous state curriculum frameworks; and (3) In the absence of CCSSM-aligned curriculum materials, teachers need professional development focusing on how to identify online materials to determine their quality and the degree to which they align with the CCSSM Content Standards and embody the CCSSM Standards for Mathematical Practice

Curriculum ergonomics: Conceptualizing the interactions between curriculum design and use

•Curriculum ergonomics helps identify barriers to successful curriculum resource use.•The study of curriculum ergonomics highlights influences of curriculum resources.•Digital curriculum resources blur the boundaries between design and use.•Curriculum resources can be designed to push teachers to new forms of instruction.•The study of curriculum ergonomics helps support development of teacher capacity. We conceptualize curriculum ergonomics as a field that studies the interactions between users and curriculum materials. We identify five themes that a curriculum ergonomics lens brings into sharper focus: (1) teachers’ relationships with and capacity to use curriculum resources; (2) alignment between design intentions and patterns of curriculum use; (3) ways in which curriculum resources influence instruction; (4) ways in which curriculum features are purposefully designed to achieve an educative purpose; and (5) the dissolution of boundaries between design and use. We first summarize the literature in curriculum ergonomics and then show how key themes from that literature inform the discussion of curriculum ergonomics

Designing and Implementing Meaningful Field-Based Experiences for Mathematics Methods Courses: A Framework and Program Description

Describes a project in an elementary mathematics methods course in which preservice teachers developed performance assessment tasks then administered these tasks in a K-8 classroom. Presents the guiding framework for this project, the project design, and the teaching and learning experiences for project leaders and preservice teachers. Includes recommendations and reflections. (Author/KHR

The role of instructional materials in the relationship between the official curriculum and the enacted curriculum

We studied how the distal policy mechanisms of curricular aims and objectives articulated in official curriculum documents influenced classroom instruction, and the factors that were associated with the enactment of those curricular aims and objectives. The study was set in the U.S. context, where there is an ambitious effort to transform curriculum and instruction via the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). The CCSSM represented the curricular aims and objectives in most of the U.S. at the time of the study. We analyzed enactments of this official curriculum in terms of the rigor of mathematical activity in 47 middle school mathematics lessons from multiple state and curriculum contexts. The enactment of the CCSSM was not uniform across contexts, and the lack of uniformity was associated in part with the type of instructional materials used by teachers. The use of instructional materials classified as delivery mechanism was associated with activity we characterized as routine procedural rigor. In lessons involving instructional materials classified as thinking device, we found greater variation and more occurrences of non-routine forms of rigor. These differences between types of instructional materials occurred despite the finding that teachers across the sample held similar views of the CCSSM. We conclude that the teachers responded more to features in the instructional materials than to the curriculum aims and objectives articulated in the CCSSM while planning and enacting lessons, which has implications for policy makers who aim to influence instruction through national standards and for school districts as they select materials

Middle school mathematics teachers’ orientations and noticing of features of mathematics curriculum materials

•Teachers attended to similar features and recommendations of teacher resources.•Most teachers planned lesson based on their perspectives on instruction.•Most teachers’ perspectives on instruction aligned with curriculum they used.•Most teachers who planned with an unfamiliar curriculum substantially adapted it.•Implications for curriculum developers, policy makers, and educators are presented. We report findings on teachers’ noticing of features in the teacher resources of mathematics curriculum programs. Based on prior analysis, we selected teachers using one of two curriculum types: delivery mechanism or thinking device. The participating teachers and the curriculum programs aimed to align with the Common Core Standards for Mathematics, and thus, they ostensibly held a common aim for instruction. We analyzed 147 lesson planning interviews with 20 middle school mathematics teachers. We found that teachers attended to similar features of teacher resources; however, patterns for interpreting and planning decisions varied based on teachers’ orientations and curriculum type

Mathematics teaching and learning at a STEM-focused high school

This study investigated a mathematics teacher’s teaching practices at a STEM-focused high school. Her focus on problem solving and reasoning supported students’ engagement and learning