Mathematics teachers investigating reasoning and sense making in their teaching

This study explored the experiences of mathematics teachers as they examined recommendations for Reasoning and Sense Making (NCTM, 2009) and investigated them in their practice through action research. Narrative inquiry was used to capture the ways that teachers conceptualized the curricular recommendations, the actions teachers took to incorporate the recommendations into their practice, the challenges and opportunities teachers encountered, and teachers\u27 interpretations. Given the trend in mathematics education to focus on the deficit between NCTM curricular recommendations and mathematics classroom practices across the United States (e.g., Hiebert, 1999; Stigler & Hiebert, 1999), this research expands the discourse by illuminating the complex nature of teachers\u27 experiences as they attempted to enact changes to align their teaching with curricular recommendations. The findings of this study, presented through narratives that capture the experiences, illustrate the complex process of teacher change in ways unique from past research. The narratives reveal the sensible nature of teachers\u27 actions and interpretations by illuminating their meaning in the context of teachers\u27 work. The challenges that teachers\u27 encountered are captured as lived moments of struggle for the reader to experience vicariously. While others have written about individual challenges encountered when attempting to change their own practice (e.g., Ball, 2000; Cady, 2006; Chazan, 2000; Frykholm, 2004; Heaton, 2000; Verkaik & Ritsema, 2006), this study brings together the experiences of seven teachers to illustrate both the uniqueness of each teacher\u27s experiences as well as the common elements amidst their complex journeys. By using the recommendations for Reasoning and Sense Making as a theme for teachers\u27 work, the findings are positioned to be informative about teachers\u27 ways of conceptualizing and making changes in their teaching in the context of current recommendations