How do math teachers select curriculum materials, and what instructional practices do they use? A new EdWeek Research Center survey sheds some light on these questions.
Earlier this month, Education Week published a series of articles on elementary math instruction. Those stories were informed by results from a nationally representative survey of about 300 math teachers, across grade levels in K-12.
Questions about what constitutes effective math instruction are once again in the spotlight. A debate in California over the state鈥檚 proposed math framework has garnered national attention as it鈥檚 touched on perennial debates in math education: tracking, conceptual vs. procedural learning, and how much teachers should work to make math relevant to students鈥� lives.
At the same time, recent results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress demonstrated that students鈥� math achievement plummeted during the pandemic, underscoring the importance of identifying practices that will help students succeed in the subject.
We鈥檝e compiled a few other results from the survey here with new insights on curricula and how teachers structure their lessons.
Read on for more on how math teachers use鈥攐r adapt鈥攄istrict-provided curricula, where they source supplemental materials, and how they ask their students to approach problem-solving.
Most math teachers use curricula and materials from multiple sources
The majority of the teachers in this survey said they used a core math curriculum. But just over half said that they don鈥檛 follow it to the letter, picking and choosing different parts. About 1 in 5 teachers said they don鈥檛 use any core program at all.
The most common source of math materials was the internet, or lesson sharing websites. Games, apps, and materials that teachers bought or created on their own were also popular.
District-provided curriculum trailed all of these sources鈥攐nly 46 percent of teachers said they regularly use core materials provided by their school system to teach their math classes.
These results are in line with other surveys of math teachers in recent years.
The RAND Corporation collects data on how teachers select and use materials in its American Instructional Resources Survey. Results for the show that about 20 percent of teachers didn鈥檛 use resources provided by their district.
When teachers didn鈥檛 use these district-provided materials, it was for a host of different reasons, RAND found: some teachers said the curricula didn鈥檛 meet students鈥� needs, others that they didn鈥檛 have time to learn how to use these resources, or that they were difficult to use.
There鈥檚 another concern with finding the right materials, said Tiffany Miera, a 5th grade math and science teacher at Needham Elementary School in Durango, Colo. (Miera was not involved in the survey.)
鈥淚t needs to have the balance of skills work, and being able to get those skills that are necessary for each grade level鈥檚 standards, but also that problem solving piece that connects to real world math and real world situations,鈥� she said.
In Miera鈥檚 experience, most math curricula lean in one direction or the other鈥攕kills-heavy, or more oriented toward problem-solving鈥攁nd teachers have to make up for the gaps.
Teachers regularly try to engage students in 鈥榩roductive struggle鈥� and problem-solving
Most teachers in Education Week鈥檚 survey said that they try to integrate the teaching of skills and problem-solving.
Research that attaining fluency with math procedures and developing conceptual understanding of math concepts is an iterative process鈥攖he two types of knowledge build upon each other.
Most teachers also said they鈥檙e engaging students in problem-solving daily, and asking students to explain how they arrived at their solutions.
The survey also asked teachers about 鈥減roductive struggle鈥濃�攖he idea that students are asked to grapple with complex ideas and novel situations as part of the problem-solving process, rather than the sole goal being the correct answer.
It鈥檚 a popular approach in math education, with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics including it in their . Even so, some math researchers have , arguing that struggling with complicated tasks without enough guidance can leave students frustrated and lead them to develop misunderstandings about how certain processes work.
Embracing productive struggle is a district priority in Miera鈥檚 school system, she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 in there daily, for them to have some sort of challenge.鈥�
Most teachers in the EdWeek Research Center survey said their students engaged in productive struggle at least weekly, with a quarter saying it occurred daily.
69传媒 should be challenged to think through problems in a way that deepens their understanding, a process that should feel 鈥渟omewhat effortful,鈥� said Jodi Davenport, a senior managing director at WestEd, whose work focuses on applied cognitive science in math instruction.
But exactly how much students should struggle, and what makes struggle productive vs. unproductive, is harder to pin down. 鈥淒oes that have a similar meaning for everybody?鈥� she asked.
There isn鈥檛 a 鈥渞eady-made metric鈥� to define how much struggle is enough, said Percival Matthews, an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 a particularly simple thing,鈥� he said.
Then, there鈥檚 the question of how much scaffolding students need to access a complex problem in the first place. Some teachers may want to be more hands-off, Matthews said, because asking students a lot of prompting questions can feel like interrupting their problem-solving process.
But in some cases, asking a simple question can help redirect students and avoid struggle that鈥檚 unproductive, Matthews said. For instance: Do you know what the problem is asking you to solve for?
鈥淲here are you going to go if you have no idea what the question is even asking you?鈥� he asked. 鈥淭here鈥檚 probably some balance that needs to happen to make sure that certain ways of self-monitoring are happening.鈥�
Data analysis for this article was provided by the EdWeek Research Center. Learn more about the center鈥檚 work.
