How teachers design curriculum units: a case study of algebra teachers' instructional decision-making processes and products

Abstract

This study examined how algebra teachers plan curriculum units when they actively design their curriculum. I used a case study (Yin, 2013) of five experienced high school mathematics teachers who came from school districts of varying sizes across the nation. More specifically, I analyzed the teachers' unit planning processes and products by applying a participatory relationship perspective between teacher and curriculum (Remillard, 2005). I found that the teachers' unit planning was a cyclical and ongoing process, which occurred not just before the unit began but also while the unit was underway and even after the unit ended. Curriculum units were the unit of planning for most teachers. A unit schedule was the most common element of the document that the teachers created during their unit planning. The teachers examined the importance of their unit components (e.g., concepts, problems, warm-ups, reviews) and made decisions based on not only the component's importance to students' mathematics learning but also student progress towards the desired learning goals. Interestingly, time constraints did not influence the teachers' plans on assessments but only their plans on lessons and pacing. The findings from this study urge future research efforts to specify differences within each of the seven unit planning practices and investigate the relationship between them. This study also provides a valuable framework for developing preservice and in-service teachers' pedagogical design capacities.