2013 Conference Proceedings - University of Nevada, Las Vegas

is articulated in relatively few sentences, when teachers read the standards, different items ofinterest are noticed. All of the responses for each SMP, except for SMP 4, were categorized intoat least four themes according to our classification scheme. With only two categories, responsesfor SMP 4 are more homogeneous and one category contained two-thirds of the responses.The authors of the standards included key elements in each standard, but teachers seeminglytook notice of certain aspects at the expense of other aspects. For example, in SMP 1,“Mathematically proficient students can explain correspondences between equations, verbaldescriptions, tables, and graphs or draw diagrams of important features and relationships, graphdata, and search for regularity or trends” (p. 6). Only 4 of the 26 (15.3%) teachers’ responses tothis standard were categorized as Explaining (ability to), the ability to “explain” in this standardspecifically pertains to proficiency language. That is, nearly 85% of the teachers’ responsesseemingly overlooked this explicit language tied to mathematical proficiency.Intentions to address SMP in instructionThe largest number of counts for each standard was in Category 4: Teacher Oriented –Pedagogical/Instructional. The focus on teacher oriented pedagogical and instructional moves isnot unexpected. Teachers likely feel most in control of their instructional and pedagogicalchoices, and as such, likely oriented their reflections towards what they feel they can mostcontrol. The second largest number of counts in SMP 2, 3, and 4 was in Category 2: StudentOriented, Need, Self-Action, Student Responsibility. Similarly, this is an aspect of teaching overwhich teachers likely feel they have some direct immediate control. In other words, inidentifying aspects of their teaching in which they can be intentional about implementing theSMP, it is not surprising that teachers focus on their practice, and what they perceive studentsneed to be doing to attain proficiency. As such, these data provide answers and insights intoResearch Question 2. That is, the data identify a certain “status” (i.e., Heck et al., 2011recommendation) of where teachers are in their thinking on implementing the SMP, and whatthey must do to be intentional implementers.SummaryImportantly, little is known about teachers’ perceptions when initially reading the SMP withregard to intentionally implementing them in their classrooms. The ideas presented in this paperprovide initial baseline data that represents a "status" of teachers as they embark on theimplementation of the SMP. The information and data from this research will be helpful to theProceedings of the 40 th Annual Meeting of the Research Council on Mathematics Learning 2013 99