Mathematics curriculum implementation through high-order cognitive tasks

Several countries have promoted curricular reforms both in K-12 and teacher training education in the past years expecting better results in their educational systems (Bauer & Prenzel, 2012, Cox, 2011, Porter, McMaken, Hwang, & Yang, 2011, OECD, 2009, Yates, & Collins, 2010). However, they have realized that designing new curricular standards is only the first step to improve student achievement and decrease inequalities. As Fulan (2001) has discussed, to promote deeper changes, governments should not only focus on new legislation, physical structures, and resources, but also promote the implementation of classroom-oriented reforms. In this sense, research has analyzed what happens inside the classroom such as tasks, teacher-student interaction, and content covered to help the curriculum policies succeed (Cohen & Lotan, 2014, Henningsen & Stein, 1997, Jones & Tarr, 2007, Stein, Smith, Henningsen, & Silver, 2009, Tekkumru‐Kisa, Stein & Schunn, 2015, Wijaya, Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, & Doorman, 2015). Investigations have also highlighted the potential of the brain to grow and change and how development should orient teaching practices, mainly, related to the content of the subjects (Boaler, 2002, 2015, Dweck, 2008). Furthermore, studies have recognized that classroom-oriented reforms in teacher training programs should promote opportunities to future teacher develop both content and pedagogical knowledge during their studies in university (Ball, Hill & Bass, 2005, Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2007, Hill & Ball, 2004, Shulman, 1987). Based on that, this research analyzes a teacher training program in Santiago to understand if the reforms that have been promoted in Chile teacher training (Cox, 2006, 2003, Bellei & Vanni, 2015) have transformed classroom practices in the university. For that, this study will analyze the mathematical activities worked in the teacher training classrooms to answer four questions: i) what are the opportunities to learn both content and pedagogical knowledge that these tasks offering for future teachers, ii) how is the level of cognitive abilities of these activities?, iii) are these tasks aligned both with the Chile teacher and students’ curriculum standards?, and iv) have these tasks been well-implemented? To achieve that, this research plan to analyze i) the tasks of the five math courses of this teaching training program (numbers, algebra, geometry I and II, and probability), ii) Chile teacher and students’ curriculum documents, iii) videos of university classes, and iv) interviews with both the subject teachers and their students.