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School mathematics curriculum materials for teachers’ learning: future elementary teachers’ interactions with curriculum materials in a mathematics course in the United States

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Abstract

This report describes ways that five preservice teachers in the United States viewed and interacted with the rhetorical components (Valverde et al. in According to the book: using TIMSS to investigate the translation of policy into practice through the world of textbooks, Kluwer, 2002) of the innovative school mathematics curriculum materials used in a mathematics course for future elementary teachers. The preservice teachers’ comments reflected general agreement that the innovative curriculum materials contained fewer narrative elements and worked examples, as well as more (and different) exercises and question sets and activity elements, than the mathematics textbooks to which the teachers were accustomed. However, variation emerged when considering the ways in which the teachers interacted with the materials for their learning of mathematics. Whereas some teachers accepted and even embraced changes to the teaching–learning process that accompanied use of the curriculum materials, other teachers experienced discomfort and frustration at times. Nonetheless, each teacher considered that use of the curriculum materials improved her mathematical understandings in significant ways. Implications of these results for mathematics teacher education are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The term teachers is used in this section of this report to refer to the preservice teachers who participated in this study. Phrases such as “each teacher” are used as shorthand for “each of the five teachers who participated in this study.”

  2. As noted in Sect. 2.1.1, the CMP and MiC curriculum units do not offer worked examples in the manner of many commercially developed mathematics textbooks. On occasion, CMP and MiC units present questions in which students are asked to consider examples of possible solution methods (correct and incorrect). These are the types of examples to which Pam referred.

  3. In a previous study (Lloyd and Behm 2005), preservice teachers’ descriptions of lessons from textbooks and curriculum materials contained discernible variation. Whereas this disparity may be related to differences in sample size, it seems more likely that it is due to the fact that the teachers in the previous study were asked to analyze lessons extracted from text materials with which they were unfamiliar. In the present study, teachers’ comments pertained to curriculum materials that they used for their own learning of mathematics for an extended period of time.

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Acknowledgments

The work described in this article was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant no. 0536678. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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    Gwendolyn Monica Lloyd

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Correspondence to Gwendolyn Monica Lloyd.

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Lloyd, G.M. School mathematics curriculum materials for teachers’ learning: future elementary teachers’ interactions with curriculum materials in a mathematics course in the United States. ZDM Mathematics Education 41, 763–775 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-009-0206-4

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