Bypass, Augment, or Integrate

Abstract

This 3-year qualitative study examined how 26 teachers in four U.S. secondary schools addressed the literacy demands of curriculum materials based on standards from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. It was grounded in sociocultural perspectives that encourage study of language in local contexts, including classrooms, communities, and disciplines. The research question asked, "How do secondary mathematics teachers in a teacher-researcher collaboration understand and address the literacy demands of standards-based curriculum materials?" An interdisciplinary team of literacy and mathematics education researchers and graduate students worked with teachers to examine required curriculum materials, plan lessons, and share resources, while collecting qualitative data to capture teachers' understandings and actions. Findings indicated that teachers responded in three ways to the materials' literacy demands: (a) they used the materials selectively to bypass or reduce the literacy demands, (b) they augmented use of the materials with literacy support, or (c) they integrated use of the materials into long-term frameworks to develop mathematics and literacy learning simultaneously. The study suggests the value of using insights from mathematics and literacy to inform mathematics curriculum design and reminds us to take teachers' perspectives toward such materials seriously, particularly when they collaborate to address issues about the materials' use in their own school contexts.

How Do Teachers Develop and Enact a Disciplinary View of Literacy in Mathematics

“…The Belmont teachers were one of four groups that participated in the project focused on the implementation of a standards-based mathematics curriculum, and were the group that moved the furthest toward integrating literacy with mathematics instruction. Even though all four groups had had access to the same professional development and to multiple opportunities for collaboration with literacy experts, by the end of the project, most of the teachers at the other three schools continued to see literacy development as separable from mathematics development-the way their experience with learning mathematics had taught them it was (Chandler-Olcott et al, 2015).…”

“…Helen (second author) is a professor of mathematics education, and Codruta (first author) was formerly an English teacher in Romania and is currently a professor of second-language education. We first worked together as members of an interdisciplinary team of literacy and mathematics education researchers and graduate students that examined the ways in which mathematics teachers addressed the literacy demands of a standards-based curriculum (Chandler-Olcott, Doerr, Hinchman, & Masingila, 2015). At the end of the project, Codruta, who was one of the graduate students on the research team, did her doctoral dissertation research in mathematics classrooms in Romania (Temple, 2008), and Helen, one of her dissertation committee members, helped Codruta make sense of her findings.…”

“It’s a Different Kind of Reading”

“…This study was part of a larger, fouryear research project carried out by a team of university-based researchers in mathematics and literacy education, working in concert with mathematics teachers in a mid-sized urban district that had adopted the Connected Mathematics Project ( CMP ) curriculum (Lappan, Fey, Fitzgerald, Friel, & Phillips, 1998) the year before the project began (Chandler-Olcott, Doerr, Hinchman, & Masingila, 2016). Both the researchers and the teachers recognized that the new curriculum materials represented a significant shift from traditional materials, in that they were organized around extended problem texts (organized as mathematics investigations to support students’ inquiry) that needed to be read and required written responses (see Appendix A).…”

Disciplinary Literacy: From Infusion to Hybridity

“…These researchers addressed disciplinary expertise and students’ interests in various ways. Two studies were designed in collaboration with local school leaders (Blackburn & Schey, 2018; Chandler-Olcott, Doerr, Hinchman, & Masingila, 2016), the latter of which also involved collaboration of literacy and disciplinary researchers and teachers. Two additional studies also involved explicit collaborations of literacy and disciplinary scholars, along with classroom teachers, to represent disciplinary and school-based ways of knowing (Doerr & Temple, 2016; Shanahan, Shanahan, & Misischia, 2011).…”