Research on Digital Curricula and e-Textbooks in Mathematics Education: The State of the Field

• In Event: 41.072 - Potential and Challenges: Research on Students' and Teachers' Interactions With Digital Mathematics Curriculum Materials

Abstract

Objectives:
We outline the features of digital curriculum materials and emerging challenges related to their development and use, describing the potentially transformative effects on student engagement and teachers’ curriculum capacities.

Perspectives:
Internationally, e-textbooks and digital curriculum resources are increasingly present in mathematics classrooms, as teachers rely on digital resources, including open educational resources (OERs), to build their mathematics curriculum. The literature, however, on the design and use of these resources is formative and requires further definition and synthesis.

Methods:
We reviewed literature on research on digital curriculum programs, e-textbooks, and open education resources. We searched for articles primarily in peer-reviewed research journals, though we also reviewed reports generated by research centers or practitioner publications if they reported on trends in schools, in educational policy, or in the development of digital materials.

Results:
Our review reveals features of digital curriculum design and trends in the ways students and teachers engage with digital curriculum programs. One feature is the incorporation of a range of media in digital programs including hyper-linked texts, web-based resources to design lessons, or tools that allow the user to change in parameters or sliders to alter a scenario or context (Dede, 2000). A second feature was the ubiquitous presence of tools that provide interactivity and task customization not possible in paper textbooks. A third feature is how digital curriculum materials customize or differentiate content. This includes individualization or personalization, where individualization involves a learner engaging almost exclusively with a digital curriculum program, with little interaction with others. Personalization, on the other hand, requires embedding scaffolds for an individual student within a commonly shared task, so that students can access them only as needed (Keefe, 2007, p. 221). A fourth feature was the embedded assessment systems, which include both formative and summative features of assessment systems, with formative systems providing real-time data to teachers to inform in the moment instruction, and summative assessment systems providing summary data, usually displayed in a dashboard-style environment.

Relating to (1) teacher and (2) student interaction with digital curriculum materials, we identified (1) that mathematics teachers used particular digital materials that were either recommended to them or that they worked on within their teacher collective/s (in school, regional or national groups). The variety of processes of interactions included alignment (“off the shelf” use), amending and changing of particular parts, or appropriation and re-design for their classes, which included individualization and personalization efforts (see above). (2) Student interactions with digital curriculum materials were mainly connected to either searching for/finding worked examples (similar to the ones they had for home or class work), or identifying supportive explanations and solutions for what they had done in class.

Significance:
Our study provides an international snapshot of curriculum efforts to design and implement digital mathematics curriculum resources in K-12 schools. This review helps to define the field of research on digital curriculum materials and provides a reference point for future research in this area.

Authors

• Jeffrey M. Choppin, University of Rochester

• Birgit Pepin, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven