Curriculum Coherence Across Elementary Teachers' Mathematics Lessons

• In Event: Elementary Teachers' Mathematics Curricular Decision Making: Multiple Resources, Multiple Truths

Abstract

Perspectives and Objectives
Coherence is a critical aspect of high-quality, equity-oriented curriculum (McNail et al., 2021; Wilkerson, 2021). Researchers describe curricular coherence in mathematics as the connection of concepts and skills within and across grades, through attention to mathematical processes and practices, with the goal to deepen student understanding (Wilkerson, 2021). While studies of curricular coherence have provided useful information about connections within one curriculum (Remillard & Kim, 2020), progressions of mathematical ideas (Cai, 2014), and consistency across multiple contexts (Schmidt & Prawat, 2006), they have not yet adequately considered how teachers work with multiple curricular materials and to achieve coherence in the more dynamic, practical, and constrained context of an individual classroom.

In this study, we considered how teachers’ worldviews (Labaree, 2003) inform their curricular materials use to create instructional coherence for students. Labaree argued that teachers draw from normative, personal, particular, and experiential lenses in their decision making.

Methods and Analysis
We used the interview transcripts as described in the symposium overview. Building from Authors’ (2019) definition of curricular coherence, we coded each transcript for instances in which teachers’ responses about curricular coherence attended to one of the following: mathematical content, mathematical representations, mathematical processes and routines, pedagogy, assessment, policy, and metaphors. We also considered how the teachers’ reflected worldviews (Labaree, 2003) differed from those in the literature.

Results
We noticed similarities and differences between the ways teachers and researchers conceptualize coherence. For instance, while both focus on helping students build understanding of content over time, the different contexts of teachers and researchers influence how they conceptualize what creating coherence requires. When working on a unit, a curriculum designer might be simultaneously modifying multiple lessons with a generic audience and idealized learning context in mind. In contrast, these teachers wrote/rewrote their curriculum stories based on feedback from their students in real time and through the use of multiple curricular materials. Also, while researchers emphasize mathematical practices (e.g., facilitating discussion) for building coherence (Cuoco & McCallum, 2018), our participants focused on key concepts in subject matter in their assessment of student understanding. Another major difference centered around policy; researchers think broadly about policy at the national level (e.g., Schmidt & Prawat, 2006), whereas these teachers attended to local and state policy (such as incorporating curricular materials that covered their state-specific standards). Finally, rather than teach from one set of curriculum materials, most teachers were using between eight and 14 separate materials. Ironically, they turned to multiple materials in part because they felt their primary or district-adopted curriculum did not provide adequate coherence for their students. The teachers often turned to Teachers Pay Teachers as well as other online resources in order to construct a set of lessons that met the diverse needs of their students.

Scholarly Significance
This study builds on literature about curricular coherence by including how teachers’ truths about coherence in their mathematics curriculum (1) was different from that of researchers and (2) was tied to student needs, was responsive to local policies, and involved multiple materials.

Authors

• Kristin Doherty, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author

• Marcy B. Wood, University of Arizona
  Presenting Author