Thanks for sharing your work!

What do you see as the impact of your study?

This is such important work because, as you stated, the landscape of curriculum is changing. We really have to understand these shifts to understand what students are given the opportunity to learn and if the curricula are coherent, especially with adaptations and modifications of the existing curricula.

Thank you for sharing your video! I think this is a very interesting and important study. What do you think the implications of your findings are for online teaching and learning? In particular, what does an equitable and coherent online curriculum look like, given the considerable disparities that you observed in students' access to resources? Hopefully there will be a post-pandemic soon and we won't have to deal with something like this again, but are there things schools, teachers, and colleges of education can/should be doing now to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic and/or a return to remote learning in the future? 

Thank you and Great Work!

Hi,

This is Mona Baniahmadi. I am a graduate research assistant at Duquesne University. This video reports on a national survey of third through fifth-grade teachers about their use of mathematics curricular resources and their experiences teaching mathematics before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. I am looking forward to hearing your questions and thoughts on our research project. 

Mona

This is such important work with seemingly divergent take aways.  For instance, we have curriculum materials in place that do not translate to online instruction; we have teachers who work to create the translation in a sense.  This could mean that we need more coherent approaches to curriculum materials that translate better to online environments.

Yet, access to online instruction for many students is dismal or non-existent.  Even a coherent curriculum will not solve issues of access to people who do not have internet to access the materials or use technology to learn.

I wonder if there are innovative ways to conceptualize 'remote learning' that we are not yet considering (or utilizing well) that could solve issues of access and connect to the curriculums in some way?  Did any of the teachers' solutions or work speak to this is some way?

Comments: I agree with the comments made by others above about the importance and great value of this work. The ability for stakeholders, like researchers and policymakers, to leverage data about the landscape of curriculum development and adoption by elementary teachers is critical to the process of informed decision-making. I appreciate this project's contribution to that effort.

Questions: Your video brought to mind two somewhat unrelated questions. Given the broad set of diverse contexts teachers find themselves in, what does your data reveal about the geographic distribution of your survey respondents? And did you find meaningful but statistically non-significant results that surprised the team or contradicted expectations?

Thank you for sharing this important work! I agree with your comment that "improved technology skills will be helpful for the post-pandemic era." I would add that the pandemic exposed students' living environments and access or lack of access to technology, and this will hopefully help influence curriculum beyond remote learning. Will you be following up with the survey participants to understand any adjustments to curriculum as schools open up and/or are in hybrid mode?

Thank you for sharing your work! I am curious, as you mention some teachers had already shifted to creating their own math lessons pre-pandemic, were there methods or tools they were already using that did translate well to online learning? Or as they migrated through an online learning year, what worked best for them?  Understanding the challenges are key, but I think collating a suite of successes, for others to also learn from, is also helpful.  I'd love to know more about your teachers experiences and what they found useful or supportive for online learning.  

We know how important opportunity to learn is for equitable instruction, and your research is highlighting how these opportunities are being impacted by these curriculum changes. What do you see as next steps as we try to increase students opportunities to learn math? How can online curriculum contribute in a positive fashion to this goal?  Thanks for sharing.

It was very interesting to read about how teachers are shifting from external resources for material to developing their own material. This makes sense given that the former (external resources) are more oriented around an in-person instruction that has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, I wonder if any deficiencies in mathematical progression among students (due to difficulties either caused or exacerbated by the challenges of the pandemic) have also propelled this increase in teacher-generated materials? Through developing their own activities, are teachers trying to tailor instruction to their specific students' deficiencies, given that many students have recently fallen behind? 

Thanks, Zachary, for your questions! While we did not ask questions specific to student deficits, we do know from our survey responses that teachers are often thinking about meeting students' strengths and needs when adapting and creating curriculum materials. Differentiation, engaging with students, and meeting student needs were key priorities for teachers as they used curriculum materials, particularly during the pandemic.