Planning for mathematics instruction: A study of the teacher guide as a resource.

Abstract

Planning is an important, and often underappreciated, phase of teaching, during which teachers make decisions and draw upon a variety of resources, such as curriculum materials, that shape students' opportunities to learn. The teacher guide (TG) is a particularly important curricular resource because it is designed to assist teachers in making decisions that affect these opportunities. Prior research has established that teachers' use of curriculum materials is affected by a range of factors, such as state level policies, knowledge of mathematics, and the nature and extent of their teaching experience. What is less clear, and far less examined, in prior research is the role that the TG may play in mediating the influence of these and other factors on teachers' decisions and actions during planning and instruction. Accordingly, this study examines how four experienced 6<super>th</super> grade teachers use the TG from Connected Mathematics Project (CMP) as a resource in making planning and enactment decisions, and factors associated with patterns of TG use. Using interpretive case study methodology, the author examined teachers' use of the CMP TG in planning for and implementing an entire unit. In addition to observing their implementation of the unit, teachers were interviewed prior to and immediately following each observation to understand how they used the TG to plan for and enact different mathematical tasks. The author then developed case studies of teachers' use of the TG in implementing the unit. Through cross-case analysis, the author found that teachers seemed to draw largely from their personal resources when making planning and enactment decisions related to mathematical tasks, and not particularly from the TG. For example, when faced with certain planning and instructional challenges, such as anticipating how students would work on a task or students struggling with the content, teachers tended to rely on their particular conceptions of mathematics teaching to address these challenges. Despite the fact that the TG provided suggestions for teachers as to how address such challenges, it was not extensively used as a resource by the teachers in this study in their planning and enactment of classroom lessons. Based on these and other findings the author identifies important questions and potential implications for curriculum developers, teacher educators, and researchers.