Flipped Mathematics Teachers as Curriculum Developers

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

Abstract

Objective
The rise of digital resources has had profound effects on mathematics curriculum. In conjunction with the rise in digital resources has been an increase in teachers flipping their instruction—that is, assigning instructional videos or multimedia for students to watch as homework and completing problem or exercise sets in class rather than vice versa. These changes have created a need to better understand not only the features and learning affordances of digital textbooks, but also the phenomena of instructional videos taking the place of textbooks altogether. This study examined two mathematics teachers who implemented flipped instruction and created their own instructional videos and multimedia resources as replacements of physical textbooks.

Theoretical Position
Drawing on the enacted mathematics curriculum framework (Remillard & Heck, 2014), the following research questions guided this study: What is the nature of the instructional materials in these flipped mathematics classrooms and what role did the teacher play in their creation? In what ways did the teachers and students use the materials during curriculum enactment?

Data Sources & Methods of Inquiry
Two secondary mathematics teachers participated in this qualitative research study. Ms. Schaefer was flipping her college algebra course for the first time. Ms. Temple had been flipping her eighth grade mathematics course since 2011. The primary data for this study are audio recorded interviews with the teachers, video-recorded classroom observations, and surveys. We analyzed the data using established qualitative methods (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).

Results
We found that the teacher-designed videos took the place of traditional textbooks. Rather than relying on textbooks to provide expositional content and worked examples, the teachers developed videos that contained these features. In examining the two teachers’ roles as active creators of the materials and the material design, we found some similarities. For example, both teachers used worked examples as centerpieces of their instructional videos. They also made extensive use of a screen-casting application (Explain Everything) to record their videos. However, there were differences in the materials the teachers created, particularly in terms of the degree to which they were interactive and varied in content. Ms. Temple utilized an iBook format to allow her to include interactive elements such as quizzes. In contrast, Ms. Schaefer focused heavily on video and tried to make them more interactive by asking a number of questions during the video. Moreover, the ways the videos were used in class somewhat paralleled typical uses of textbooks but also provided different affordances and constraints.

Significance of Work
With continued advances in technology and based upon recent trends, it seems likely that teachers’ adoptions of flipped instruction will continue to rise. As teachers develop instructional videos for their flipped classrooms, mathematics education researchers need to expand their notion of instructional materials to include these resources. Mathematics educators must consider instructional videos in flipped classrooms as instructional materials rather than only as instructional representations. This study provides a foundation on which to explore this notion as research tries to align with current practice.

Authors

• Zandra de Araujo, University of Missouri

• Samuel Otten, University of Missouri - Columbia