Despite the many constraints placed on them, teachers have significant influence over what and how they teach (Cuban, 1995; Lipsky, 1980; Wills & Sandholtz, 2009).  Mathematics teachers who are using the same curricular materials can enact them in dramatically different ways and afford their students very different experiences (Chávez-López, 2003; Chval, Grouws, Smith, & Ziebarth, 2006; Kilpatrick, 2003; Remillard, 1996; Schwille et al., 1982).  Curricular resources (such as textbooks, curriculum guides, and state and national documents) contain messages about mathematics and mathematics teaching.  Teachers may not interpret these messages as they are intended by the authors.  Furthermore, teachers may interpret there to be competing and/or conflicting messages within and across resources.  One possible reason for why it is that teachers can use the same resources in such a wide variety of ways is that each teacher is focusing on different messages and perhaps understanding the messages differently.  Because teachers play such a significant role in the mathematics education of students, curriculum and assessment writers and those making decisions about what curricular materials will be used in schools need to learn how teachers are currently interpreting curricular resources and use this knowledge to modify these resources or select different resources to better support teachers in their enactment of the intended messages. 

Methods and Data Sources

In order to address these issues, this study explored the messages that middle school mathematics teachers in Maryland interpret from curricular resources and the ways in which these messages relate to their beliefs and practices.  Specifically, the research questions were:

• What messages do teachers interpret from available resources?
• How consistent are these messages across resources?
• How do these messages relate to the teachers’ expressed beliefs and reported classroom practices?

This study builds off of a previous research study which included interviews of five experienced middle school mathematics teachers in Maryland.  These interviews explored the messages that the teachers interpreted from student textbooks, school district documents, state documents, and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) documents, and the ways in which those interpretations related to their beliefs and practices.  Four themes—Concepts and Procedures, Question Types, Source of Solution Methods, and Technology—created the most tension for the teachers.  Thus, these four themes are the focus of the current study. 

The current study’s survey asked teachers to respond to sets of similar statements with regard to their own personal beliefs, their own teaching practices, and how they imagine the authors of the textbooks, school district documents, state documents, and NCTM documents would respond to these statements.  These statements focused on the four themes identified earlier – the balance of concepts and procedures (Concepts and Procedures), the types of questions to ask of students (Question Types), the ways in which students should become acquainted with solution methods (Source of Solution Methods), and the use of technology by students when learning mathematics (Technology). 

An invitation to participate in the online survey was sent to each of the 1330 middle school mathematics teachers in Maryland.  Additionally, members of the Maryland Council of Teachers of Mathematics (an affiliate of the NCTM) received encouragement to participate via an email from the president of that organization.  150 teachers accessed the survey.   

In order to determine whether or not there are statistically significant differences among the teachers’ beliefs, teachers’ practices, and teachers’ interpretations of the textbooks, school district documents, state of Maryland documents, and NCTM documents, One-Way Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) procedures were used.  One-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA compares how a within-subjects experimental group performs in three or more experimental conditions.  Frequently the procedures are used to determine if there has been a change over time.  However, this procedure may also be used to compare how the group responds to similar, but different, tests such as the statements about the various resources examined through this survey (Maxwell & Delaney, n.d.).  Using these methods, several statistically significant differences were detected.  

Results and Conclusions

The teachers who participated in this survey indicated that they feel that they have autonomy over how they will teach, but little control over what content they teach.  They also indicated that while the school district and state documents have significant influence on their instruction, their students’ textbooks and NCTM documents have less influence.  Additionally, the teachers in this study interpreted many discrepancies in messages across resources.  In particular, the teachers tended to interpret different messages from their students’ textbooks and NCTM documents.  Though most textbooks claim to be aligned with NCTM principles, the teachers see discrepancies between these resources.  Thus, attention should be paid to how consistently and accurately NCTM messages are portrayed in the textbooks provided to students. 

References

 Chávez-López, O.  (2003).  From the textbook to the enacted curriculum: Textbook use in the middle school mathematics classroom.  (Doctoral dissertation, UMI No. 3099613)

 Chval, K. B., Grouws, D. A., Smith, M., & Ziebarth, S.  (2006, April).   A cross-site study of local factors affecting mathematics curriculum enactment.  Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. 

 Cuban, L.  (1995).  How organizations influence teacher responses to secondary science curriculum reform.  Theory into Practice, 34(1), 4-11. 

 Kilpatrick, J.  (2003).  What works?  In S. S. Senk & D. R. Thompson (Eds.), Standards-based school mathematics curricula: What are they?  What do students learn? (pp. 471-488).  Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 

 Lipsky, M.  (1980).  Street-Level Bureaucracy.  New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 

 Maxwell, S. E., & Delaney, H. D. (n.d.)  One-way repeated measures ANOVA.  Retrieved July 28, 2010 from http://frank.mtsu.edu/~dkfuller/psy629/notes/uni1wayrmd.pdf

 Remillard, J. T.  (1996).  Changing texts, teachers, and teaching: The role of curriculum materials in mathematics education reform.  (Doctoral dissertation, UMI No. 9734181) 

Schwille, J., Porter, A., Belli, G., Floden, R., Freeman, D., Knappen, L., et al.  (1982).  Teachers as policy brokers in the content of elementary school mathematics (Report No. ED 225 854 SE 040 213).  East Lansing, MI: Institute for Research on Teaching. 

 Wills, J. S., & Sandholtz, J. H.  (2009).  Constrained professionalism: Dilemmas of teaching in the face of test-based accountability.  Teachers College Record, 111(4), 1065-1114.