Learned adaptations: Teachers’ understanding and use of curriculum resources

Abstract

This study focused on the use of curriculum materials for three teachers who had enacted instructional sequences from the materials on multiple occasions. The study investigated how the teachers drew on the materials, what they understood about the curriculum resources, and how they connected their use of the materials to their observations of student thinking. There were similarities across the teachers, particularly with respect to their goals and how they read and followed recommendations in the teacher resource materials. There were differences in how their task revisions were in response to what they observed about student thinking. The teacher who most intensively observed student thinking made connections between her interpretations of students’ strategies and her use of the curriculum resources, allowing her to design learned adaptations. Learned adaptations required both an understanding of the design rationale and empirically developed knowledge of how that rationale played out in practice. The empirically developed knowledge could not be totally anticipated by the designers, in part because it developed within a particular context by a teacher with particular characteristics. The case of the teacher who developed learned adaptations showed how these complementary forms of knowledge helped her to use the curriculum resources in ways that enhanced students’ opportunities for sense making. Furthermore, her adaptations were intended to facilitate success not only at the task level, but also across instructional sequences as well. This study also shows how professional vision is not limited to informing only in-the-moment instructional decisions, but also to the use of curriculum materials.