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This poster presents a study on the voice of two Swedish mathematics teacher guides. We have made a content analysis of teacher guides to the two most commonly used mathematics textbooks in Swedish lower secondary school Grades 7 to 9. Our theoretical stance is that curriculum resources can support teachers pedagogical design capacity. Our analysis shows that the voice of both guides speaks through the teacher with narratives and scripted instructions, instead of making visible the strengths and weaknesses with different teaching design considerations. The results could be used to further elaborate on how the teacher guides can be designed to support the pedagogical design capacity for a range of different teachers.

The driving forces of conducting the two studies presented in this thesis are: the strong position of curriculum resources in the mathematics classroom in general; teachers’ faith in curriculum resources to convey the intentions and goals of mathematics education; and the expected benefits to mathematics education through expanding the knowledge base of research in the area of curriculum resources in general, and teacher guides in particular. This thesis builds upon two studies conducted in Sweden. The first is a study on how teachers use teacher guides. The results of this study could be seen as one piece in the building of a theoretical understanding of how teachers use their tools in planning and enacting teaching. The data for Study I were collected through semi-structured interviews with five early-years mathematics teachers. In advance, the teachers were asked to copy the pages from the teacher guide they had used the week before the interview. The analysis of the interviews shows that less experienced teachers desire a wider scope of content in their teacher guide. More experienced teachers desire support from teaching activities, in the design of teaching in classroom practice. Another interesting result was that all teachers in our study, regardless of prior experience, knowledge, beliefs, etc., want the teacher guide to offer connections between theory and practice. The second study investigates what content is represented in Swedish textbooks. The results of this study map the terrain over how the most commonly used textbooks in Sweden construct the topic of proportion and proportional reasoning. My choice of textbooks is based on a questionnaire among all compulsory school mathematics teachers in the sixth largest municipality in Sweden, revealing that two curriculum resources together covered 97% of the classrooms in Grades 7-9. The study provides insights into the strengths and weaknesses in the presented structure regarding proportional reasoning in the most commonly used textbooks in Swedish lower secondary school. Teachers could use these insights when making decisions about how to use their textbooks, and to possibly reconsider how to organize the enactment of the national curriculum in order to develop deep understanding. The analyses could provide authors of teacher guides and textbooks with valuable information to consider regarding structure and design.

In this study we investigate how teachers talk about their use of mathematics teacher guides for support and inspiration, with the aim of broadening the knowledge of how teachers use these guides in and for teaching. Our second aim is to test whether guidelines for designing educative curriculum material can serve as an analytical tool. The results show that less experienced teachers use a wider scope of content in the teacher guide whereas more experienced teachers use teaching activities1 and support for the design of teaching. Common for all teachers, despite level of experience, is that they want the teacher guide to provide connections between theory and practice. The analytical tool served well for analysing interviews, helping us pay attention to the features of the content discussed.

Proportional reasoning is a cornerstone in compulsory mathematics education. It is considered to be one of the most challenging topics to tech and learn. This article discusses the potential of two Swedish textbooks to support the teaching and learning of proportion and proportional reasoning. Since curricular resources, such as textbooks are teachers’ most important tools for planning and enacting lessons; the support they offer has great impact on how teaching and learning will be designed. To analyze the textbooks examined here, I use a framework developed by Shield and Dole, based on research. The study provides insights of the strengths and weaknesses in the presented structure regarding proportional reasoning in the most commonly used textbooks in Swedish lower secondary school. Teachers could use these insights, when making decisions about how to use their textbooks. This study is likely to map the terrain of Sweden, due to the textbooks widespread use.