Tonia J. Land

Using Educative Curriculum Materials to Support the Development of Prospective Teachers’ Knowledge:

Building on the work of Ball and Cohen and that of Davis and Krajcik, as well as more recent research related to teacher learning from and about curriculum materials, we seek to answer the question, How can prospective teachers (PTs) learn to read and use educative curriculum materials in ways that support them in acquiring the knowledge needed for teaching? We present two extended conceptual examples of ways in which educative curriculum materials might be used to support PTs in developing the knowledge needed for teaching. We follow these examples with a set of empirically based design principles and conclude with a brief consideration of unanswered questions related to the use of educative curriculum materials in teacher education.

Preservice Elementary Mathematics Teachers’ Emerging Ability to Write Problems to Build on Children’s Mathematics

It has become increasingly important for mathematics teacher educators to assist elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) in leveraging the knowledge of children’s learning of mathematics during instruction. Professional noticing (Jacobs et al. J Res Math Educ 41(2):169–202, 2010) involves the interrelated skills of attending, interpreting, and responding to children’s mathematics. Responding with problems that build on children’s mathematical thinking is a skill that is both difficult to learn and a critical practice in teaching elementary mathematics. We present our analyses of PSTs’ responses to a sequence of three increasingly complex methods course activities designed to scaffold PSTs’ engagement in professional noticing, and to develop their abilities to write problems that build on children’s mathematics. Supported by our series of activities, PSTs demonstrated a strong foundation in attending to and interpreting children’s mathematics. In comparison, however, these experiences did not result in comparable gains in responding to the children’s mathematical thinking, a result with implications for mathematics education.

Enhancing and Enacting Curricular Progressions in Elementary Mathematics.

In this study, we examined how curricular resources supported three expert teachers in their enactment of progressions. Using a video-stimulated interview process, we documented the multiple types of progressions identified, described, and enacted by the teachers. Results indicate that the teachers used four different types of progressions—mathematical concepts, instructional activities, number choices, and student solutions—and that the progressions were embedded within each other. This study contributes to the field’s understanding of the ways in which expert teachers make use of curriculum- and research-based progressions in their teaching practices.

Understanding Preservice Teachers’ Curricular Knowledge

The overall purpose of our work is to document the range of preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) curricular knowledge (Shulman, Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2):4–14, 1986) and curriculum use practices. In this chapter, we present PSTs’ responses to a set of questions that elicited their knowledge and practices for reading, evaluating, and adapting a standards-based curriculum lesson. The questions are related to the goals and purposes of the lesson, the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson, and possible changes to the lesson. Our findings about the range of PSTs’ responses to the questions contributed to a preliminary curriculum use trajectory and are intended to help researchers further develop the constructs of curriculum use and curricular knowledge.

Curriculum spaces for connecting to children’s multiple mathematical knowledge bases

Abstract Elementary mathematics curriculum materials can serve as a lever for instructional change. In this paper, we promote a particular kind of instructional change: supporting teachers in learning to integrate children’s multiple mathematical knowledge bases (MMKB), including children’s mathematical thinking and children’s home and community-based mathematical funds of knowledge, in instruction. A powerful means of supporting pre-service teachers in integrating children’s MMKB in instruction may be to scaffold teachers’ noticing of potential spaces in elementary mathematics curriculum materials for connecting to children’s MMKB and then developing practices for leveraging these spaces during instruction. We focus on existing and potential spaces in written curriculum materials, or curriculum spaces, so as to better support teachers in enacting curriculum that opens spaces for connecting to children’s MMKB.