Emergent mathematics curriculum: A case study of two teachers.

Abstract

The purpose of this case study was to explore the pedagogic practices of two purposively selected teachers and their implementation of an emergent mathematics curriculum. The study aimed to provide insight into what pedagogic practices these teachers include in their implementation of an emergent mathematics curriculum and to understand how these teachers not only envisioned curriculum alternatives and enacted something different in their classrooms but also how they addressed the many constraints and limitations often facing teachers in their attempts to create something different with and for their students. This case study, focusing on an elementary teacher and a middle school mathematics teacher, sheds light on the envisioning of curriculum alternatives for mathematics education amidst the many constraints of current and traditional schooling practices. The analysis of both these teachers' stories reveals that the role of mentoring and mutual inquiry is key in their transformation. Support in the form of continual and ongoing collaboration and reflection helped to create a process of evolution in both these teachers' pedagogic practices and orientations about teaching and learning. Both these teachers' orientations about teaching and learning have evolved from a focus on what teaching practices they might adopt or problems they might choose to involve their students into a focus entirely on student learning. Rather than considering what they might give to the students or present to the students they are participant learners with and along side their students.