Curriculum-Context Knowledge: Teacher Learning From Successive Enactments of a Standards-Based Mathematics Curriculum

Abstract

This study characterizes the teacher learning that stems from successive enactments of innovative curriculum materials. This study conceptualizes and documents the formation of curriculum-context knowledge (CCK) in three experienced users of a Standards-based mathematics curriculum. I define CCK as the knowledge of how a particular set of curriculum materials functions to engage students in a particular context. The notion of CCK provides insight into the development of curricular knowledge and how it relates to other forms of knowledge that are relevant to the practice of teaching, such as content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. I used a combination of video-stimulated and semistructured interviews to examine the ways the teachers adapted the task representations in the units over time and what these adaptations signaled in terms of teacher learning. Each teacher made noticeable adaptations over the course of three or four enactments that demonstrated learning. Each of the teachers developed a greater understanding of the resources in the respective units as a result of repeated enactments, although there was some important variation between the teachers. The learning evidenced by the teachers in relation to the units demonstrated their intricate knowledge of the curriculum and the way it engaged their students. Furthermore, this learning informed their instructional practices and was intertwined with their discussion of content and how best to teach it. The results point to the larger need to account for the knowledge necessary to use Standards-based curricula and to relate the development and existence of well-elaborated knowledge components to evaluations of curricula.

Notes

Notes

1 The names of the teachers are pseudonyms. The pseudonyms are those of noted female mathematicians.

2 The names of the districts are pseudonyms.

3 I am characterizing improvisation as one of two things. The first is adapting a task in the process of enactment rather than in the planning stages. The second is adapting a task without much forethought about how the adaptations will work. This characterization is consistent with the definition for “improvise,” which is to “compose and perform or deliver without previous preparation” (retrieved April 23, 2008, from dictionary.com).