Teachers’ daily practices with curriculum materials: Toward a transactional view of the curriculum system

Abstract

AbstractRecent research demonstrates that mathematics teachers rely on a variety of curriculum materials and must make meaning and synthesize these materials for use in a particular place with particular students. While there are multiple theories about the nature of this work and the factors which influence this work, the field continues to lack a theoretical basis with which to understand this multifaceted and complex work. This paper seeks to illuminate the process by which teachers come to make meaning from curriculum materials by the daily practices of one team of teachers. Findings supports a transactional view of curriculum in which students, teachers, curriculum materials, and contexts work with and on each other as curriculum emerges. Using this theory as a framework, multiple understandings of teachers’ work with curriculum can be synthesized as highlighting particular aspects of a larger curriculum system.