Pedagogical design capacity of lower-secondary mathematics teacher and her interaction with curriculum resources

Ljerka Jukic Matic

doi:10.17583/redimat.2019.2396

Abstract

Various curriculum resources emerged in the last decades, but the textbook still remains the most used teaching and learning resource in mathematics classrooms. In this paper, we use a case study to analyze teaching practice of one math teacher. The aim of the study is to examine how math teacher interacts with the textbook and teacher guide, especially when teacher offloads on those resources, adapts them or improvises in the classroom. The study was conducted using lessons observations and semi-structured interviews. The results showed that teacher does not favour particular type of resource mobilization. Her interaction with resources can be characterized as a dynamic interplay, where type of resource mobilization exchange between the lessons and within a lesson as well. Moreover, teacher’s mobilization of textbook and teacher guide depends on teacher’s goals and assessment of the most pedagogically beneficial instruction for students.

Highlights

Various curriculum resources have emerged over the last decades, but the textbook still remains the most used teaching and learning resource in mathematics classrooms
The results showed that teachers use textbooks to a great extent for various activities: lesson preparation, teaching a new topic, exercising and assigning homework and that textbooks were used more than other curriculum resources
Betty offloaded from the textbook, adapted from the textbook and teacher guide, and improvised, but not to the same extent in every lesson

Summary

Introduction

Various curriculum resources have emerged over the last decades, but the textbook still remains the most used teaching and learning resource in mathematics classrooms. The material artefacts that teachers use to engage in instruction, such as lesson plans, teacher guides, textbooks, and other representations of both content and pedagogy, are collectively referred to as curriculum resources (Brown, 2009; Remillard, 2005). The subject of the utilization of curriculum resources is important in terms of our expectations of what can be accomplished in the classroom They can promote a teacher’s ability to use personal resources to adapt the curriculum materials and to achieve productive and beneficial instructional episodes in the classroom (Ball & Cohen, 1996; Davis & Krajcik, 2005; Ahl et al, 2015). Brown (2009) refers to teaching as a design process and this ability to design productive classroom instruction he calls pedagogical design capacity

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