Abstract
This paper explores how the design features of curriculum materials might influence potential opportunities to learn and student outcomes through a comparative, documentary analysis of four curriculum materials commonly used in the US. The four curriculum programs were developed to align with different theories of learning and mathematical goals and have strongly differing design features. Using findings of a large-scale, experimental study of the effects of the four curricula on student achievement as a backdrop, we analyzed the designs of the curriculum materials with respect to three analytical categories: (a) mathematical emphasis, (b) instructional approach, and (c) support for teachers. Results of the analysis reveal substantially different types of opportunities to learn across the four sets of materials. We hypothesize how these differences could explain the achievement results of the experimental study and point to additional influential factors to consider.
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Notes
In the US, the term curriculum materials refers to materials designed for use by teachers in the classroom. Unlike the term textbooks, which traditionally specified the topics to be covered and provided exercises for students to complete, curriculum materials include pedagogical guidance and outline the development of the content. Many curricula in the US offer a complete package of materials including a teacher’s guide, a student text, and other supplemental resources the teacher might use to guide instruction. In this paper, we use the terms curriculum or curriculum materials to refer to the different mathematics programs examined in this study.
The grade 1 and 2 students were 6.6 and 7.7 years, on average, respectively, at the beginning of the school year.
Published by Pearson Scott Foresman.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
39 schools participated in the study during the 2006-07 school year; the remaining 71 participated in 2007–2008. The data were pooled to increase the analysis sample size. Results for all 110 schools are based on the first year of implementation.
The selection of the ECLS-K was not surprising because the test developers focused on measuring student conceptual understanding in a valid and reliable way across each of the 50 US states. One of the test developers, explained that the development team examined curriculum standards followed in each US state and major math curricula in use at the time to ensure the assessment was appropriate across the various contexts (S. Atkins-Burnett, Personal Communication, February 11, 2014).
For more information on the test see http://nces.ed.gov/ecls/kinderinstruments.asp.
Mathematics tasks in curricula infrequently call for a single type of thinking; when classifying tasks, we attended to their primary emphasis determined by how the child would be expected to spend the most time.
A volume edited by Heck, Chval, Weiss, and Ziebarth (2012) offers new approaches to addressing this challenge.
See Agodini et al. (2013) for recently released outcomes after 2 years of use in grades 1 and 2.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported in part by a US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences contract (number ED-04-CO-0112/0003) with Mathematica Policy Research; however, the views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute of Education Sciences. The authors are responsible for any errors.
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Remillard, J.T., Harris, B. & Agodini, R. The influence of curriculum material design on opportunities for student learning. ZDM Mathematics Education 46, 735–749 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-014-0585-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-014-0585-z