Research Commentary: Curricular Noticing: A Framework to Describe Teachers' Interactions With Curriculum Materials

Abstract

Building on the work of Professional Noticing of Children's Mathematical Thinking, we introduce the Curricular Noticing Framework to describe how teachers recognize opportunities within curriculum materials, understand their affordances and limitations, and use strategies to act on them. This framework builds on Remillard's (2005) notion of participation with curriculum materials, connects with and broadens existing research on the relationship between teachers and written curriculum, and highlights new areas for research. We argue that once mathematics educators better understand the strategic curricular practices that support ambitious teaching, which we refer to as professional curricular noticing, such knowledge could lead to recommendations for how to support the curricular work of teachers and novice teachers in particular.

Technology use in high school aural skills instruction

“…Results of the current study offer APMT teachers specific insights regarding which technological tools their colleagues use most and when, how, and why they incorporate, or do not incorporate, them in their classrooms. These results appear to corroborate a growing body of research (e.g., Dieteker et al, 2018; Reiten, 2018; Smith et al, 2017) suggesting that technology certainly should not be used in education curriculum automatically as a “must-have,” but should be gradually and appropriately included in individual courses like APMT when it can improve and enhance students’ learning pace and long-term growth. Teachers who wish to incorporate technology for aural skills instruction should be prepared to evaluate the merits of various programs on multiple platforms to determine what is feasible and how it can help.…”

Theory and Research on Tasks Revisited: Task as a Context for Students’ Thinking in the Era of Ambitious Reforms in Mathematics and Science

“…These efforts open up opportunities for further explorations such as how to support teachers' learning to develop these assessment tasks, what it means to use these tasks in statewide assessments, and how to support their alignment to tasks used in the instructional and curricular channels. Researchers have also already begun to examine how teachers recognize opportunities for complex student thinking within curricular materials and how this so-called curricular noticing (Dietiker, Males, Amador, & Earnest, 2018) can lead to deeper understandings and recommendations for how to support the curricular work of teachers. Cross-pollinating this developing line of research with what we know about task selection and enactment can lead to insights regarding the design of current reforms.…”

How an inquiry-oriented textbook shaped a calculus instructor’s planning

“…However, for these opportunities to be capitalized, teachers need to first locate them, make sense of the material that offers such opportunities, and then act by incorporating them in their planning practices. Building on Remillard's (2005) notion of participation with curriculum materials by considering the textbook 'a dialogic partner' rather than 'a fixed object' (p. 522), Dietiker et al (2018) explored teachers' planning processes by introducing the curricular noticing framework. To study how curricular materials mediate planning, they suggest looking into three sets of actions that are necessary for the work teachers do when interacting with curriculum materials: curricular attending, curricular interpreting, and curricular responding.…”

“…Curricular noticing refers to how teachers capitalize on the opportunities afforded by the curriculum, both in mathematical and pedagogical ways, to create a teaching plan (Dietiker et al, 2018). The curricular attending phase refers to actions involved in viewing or visually taking in information within the curriculum.…”