Feature Articles
Learning Trajectory Based Instruction:
Toward a Theory of Teaching
Paola Sztajn1, Jere Confrey1, P. Holt Wilson2 , and Cynthia Edgington1
In this article, we propose a theoretical connection between research
on learning and research on teaching through recent research on
students’ learning trajectories (LTs). We define learning trajectory
based instruction (LTBI) as teaching that uses students’ LTs as the
basis for instructional decisions. We use mathematics as the context
for our argument, first examining current research on LTs and then
examining emerging research on how mathematics teachers use LTs
to support their teaching. We consider how LTs provide specificity
to four highly used frameworks for examining mathematics teaching,
namely mathematical knowledge for teaching, task analysis, discourse
facilitation practices, and formative assessment. We contend that
by unifying various teaching frameworks around the science of LTs,
LTBI begins to define a theory of teaching organized around and
grounded in research on student learning. Thus, moving from the
accumulation of various frameworks into a reorganization of the
frameworks, LTBI provides an integrated explanatory framework
for teaching.
Keywords: instructional practices; learning processes/strategies;
mathematics education; qualitative research
A
lthough learning and teaching are often seen as two
sides of the same phenomenon, connections between
research on each are usually underspecified (Romberg
& Carpenter, 1986). Theories of learning can develop with no
necessary connection to teaching, and theories of teaching are
far less common than their learning counterparts. In this arti-
cle, we propose a theoretical connection between research on
learning and research on teaching through the concept of learn-
ing trajectory based instruction (LTBI). The National Research
Council (2007) called attention to learning trajectories (LTs)
when it indicated that research on learning was beginning to
map the “successively more sophisticated ways of thinking
about a topic that can follow and build on one another as chil-
dren learn about and investigate a topic over a broad span of
time” (p. 211). Building on the recent attention to LTs, we
define LTBI as teaching that uses LTs as the basis for instruc-
tional decisions.
Educational Researcher,Vol. 41, No. 5, pp. 147–156
DOI: 10.3102/0013189X12442801
© 2012 AERA. http://er.aera.net
Using mathematics as the context for our argument, we first
present recent progress made in developing LTs. Then, we exam-
ine emerging research on how these trajectories support instruc-
tion. Next, we consider the specificity LTs provide to four highly
used frameworks for mathematics teaching, namely mathemati-
cal knowledge for teaching (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008), task
analysis (Stein, Grover, & Henningsen, 1996), discourse facilita-
tion practices (Stein, Engle, Smith, & Hughes, 2008), and for-
mative assessment (Heritage, 2008). Finally, we bring together
the refined understandings LTs provide to these frameworks into
a unique framework for LTBI. We contend that by unifying var-
ious teaching frameworks around the science of LTs, the pro-
posed LTBI framework is an important step toward a theory of
teaching grounded in research on student learning.
Learning Trajectories
Simon (1995) first used the expression hypothetical LT to repre-
sent the “paths by which learning might proceed” (p. 135) when
students progress from their own starting points toward an
intended learning goal. He named these trajectories hypothetical
because each student’s learning path was not knowable in
advance. More recently, Maloney and Confrey (2010) proposed
that LTs represent a progression of cognition that, though not
necessarily linear, is also not random. Trajectories, for them, rep-
resent ordered expected tendencies developed through empirical
research designed to identify highly probable steps students fol-
low as they develop their initial mathematical ideas into formal
concepts, recognizing that each student’s path can be unique.
Corcoran, Mosher, and Rogat (2009) highlighted that the ten-
dencies represented in LTs are based on “research about how stu-
dents’ learning actually progresses” (p. 8), as opposed to the usual
attention to knowledge of the discipline. They distinguished the
logic of the learner from the logic of the discipline, what Confrey
(2006) named students’ voice and disciplinary perspectives, respec-
tively, and underscored the importance of the learner in guiding
future work on instruction, curriculum, and assessment.
Clements and Sarama (2004) defined LTs as “descriptions of
children’s thinking and learning in a specific mathematical
domain, and a related conjectured route through a set of instruc-
tional tasks designed to engender those mental processes or
1
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
2
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC
June/July 2012 147
actions hypothesized to move children through a developmental
progression of levels of thinking” (p. 83). Confrey, Maloney,
Nguyen, Mojica, and Myers (2009) specified that an LT is
“a researcher-conjectured, empirically-supported description of
the ordered network of constructs a student encounters through
instruction (i.e., activities, tasks, tools, forms of interaction, and
methods of evaluation), in order to move from informal ideas,
through successive refinements of representation, articulation,
and reflection, towards increasingly complex concepts over time”
(p. 347).
Daro, Mosher, and Corcoran (2011) collected 18 different
mathematics LTs for various content topics. For example,
Clements and Sarama (2009) developed 10 related LTs in the
areas of number, operations, and geometry, spanning ages 0 to 8.
Instructional activities for these LTs were designed to move stu-
dents from one level to the next. Battista’s (2006) LT was a com-
ponent of his cognition-based assessment system and provided
teachers with core mathematical ideas, a framework for under-
standing students’ conceptions, and related tasks designed to
elicit student thinking in support of classroom assessment.
Confrey and colleagues (2009) created a framework for the devel-
opment of rational number reasoning. Their Equipartitioning LT
consisted of 16 levels spanning grades K–8. Diagnostic assess-
ment items were created for each level of proficiency in the LT.
In their analysis, Daro et al. (2011) indicated that the existing
trajectories varied in span, grain size, use of misconceptions, and
level of detail. They also noted that the role of tasks in LTs varied.
In some LTs, specific tasks were designed to foster movement
toward more sophisticated understanding. In others, tasks were
created to elicit students’ mathematical thinking at various
points. Thus, whereas tasks were embedded into some LTs mak-
ing these LTs task dependent, other LTs used tasks to illustrate
one possible means to elicit desired behaviors, with the LTs
assumed to emerge across a variety of curricular options depen-
dent on instructional moves. In both cases, LT researchers
acknowledged the probabilistic nature of their progressions, but
most important from an instructional perspective, all LT research-
ers recognized a critical role for instruction in student progress.
Daro et al. (2011) suggested that existing LTs still required
further empirical examination, and despite existing differences
among LTs, they called on researchers to “translate the available
learning trajectories into usable tools for teachers” (p. 57).
They asked that these tools be incorporated into professional
development settings—a work toward which the LTBI frame-
work contributes.
Learning Trajectories and Teachers
The relation between LTs and instruction creates the necessity of
developing LTBI in tandem with the development of LTs. We
contend that the development of LTBI can support further
research on LTs. Nonetheless, despite progress made to empiri-
cally develop LTs in various domains, examinations of how teach-
ers come to make sense, adapt, and implement LTs are only
beginning to emerge.
In mathematics, connections between teaching and learning
through the use of student thinking precede the development of
LTs. With the strong presence of constructivism in mathematics
education, researchers have long called for teachers to attend to
148 educational Researcher
students’ prior knowledge and build models of students’ under-
standings (e.g., Confrey & Kazak, 2006; Steffe & D’Ambrosio,
1995). However, research on instruction that followed these
principles differed from current work on LTs in one important
aspect. Previously, teachers learned general concepts about stu-
dent learning and were asked to construct models of their stu-
dents. With the current development of LTs, teachers are being
asked to learn about research-based, content-specific levels of
progression in students’ thinking and make sense of student
learning in relation to this framework. Thus, although LT
research provides the foundational framework for instructional
decisions, the specific ways in which teachers incorporate this
information into practices necessitates a shift to elaborate related
research on teaching.
An important exception to the early constructivist work was
Cognitively Guided Instruction. This project offered teachers a
framework presenting levels of sophistication in the strategies
children used to solve various addition and subtraction word
problems—an early version of an LT. Carpenter, Fennema,
Peterson, Chiang, and Loef (1989) set out to “investigate whether
providing the teachers access to explicit knowledge derived from
research on children’s thinking in a specific content domain
would influence the teachers’ instruction” (p. 500). They found
that teachers who learned about these strategies were more likely
to listen to their students’ problem-solving processes and spend
classroom time discussing multiple strategies. Later, Fennema
et al. (1996) showed that teachers who had a “research-based
model of children’s thinking” (p. 496) offered more opportuni-
ties for children to solve problems and elicited children to share
their thinking.
Using the more recently developed LTs, Wilson (2009) con-
ducted a 12-week study to investigate how teachers come to use
LTs in instruction. He analyzed the practices of 10 second-grade
teachers out of 33 K–2 teachers who learned about one particular
LT through 20 hours of professional development. He found that
the LT offered teachers a theoretical frame to select instructional
tasks, interact with students in classroom discussions, and analyze
students’ work. Similarly, Mojica (2010) studied how prospective
teachers learned about and used an LT. Fifty-six teachers partici-
pated in a design study over an 8-week period where Mojica
taught the teachers about an LT. She found that teachers used
their understandings of the LT to deepen their knowledge of
mathematics. Additionally, she found that knowledge of the LT
assisted prospective teachers in taking students’ thinking into
consideration when making instructional decisions.
Clements, Sarama, Spitler, Lange, and Wolfe (2011) used a
randomized trial with 42 schools to evaluate the effectiveness of
an intervention centered around LTs. They found that children
in intervention schools had greater growth in their mathematical
knowledge than those in control schools. Clements and col-
leagues also examined the classroom practices of participating
teachers and found that intervention teachers were more respon-
sive to students and better able to capitalize on spontaneous class-
room situations to teach mathematics.
The emerging research on teachers’ use of LTs shows that as
teachers make sense of trajectories, these trajectories can support
growth in mathematical knowledge, selection of instructional
tasks, interactions with students in classroom contexts, and use
 SUBJECT MATTER PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT
KNOWLEDGE KNOWLEDGE
Common
content
Knowledge of
content and
knowledge Knowledge
Specialized students (KCS)
(CCK) of content
content
and
knowledge (SCK)
Horizon Knowledge of curriculum
content content and
knowledge teaching (KCT)
Figure 1. Framework for examining mathematical knowledge
for teaching
Reproduced from Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008.
of students’ responses to further learning. Although much
research is still needed to carefully examine how teachers come to
make sense of the researcher-developed LTs, existing results
already highlight the strength of having such a framework for
understanding the progression of student thinking over time at
the center of one’s teaching and the potential of theoretically
defining LTBI as a framework for instruction.
Placing LTs at the Center of Frameworks for
Teaching
In what follows, we theoretically place LTs at the center of four
frameworks used to analyze important aspects of mathematics
teaching. We examine how LTs necessitate the refinement of our
understanding of these frameworks toward more specific defini-
tions that use the trajectories as reference. We use the distinction
between student voice and mathematical perspective to support
our work, highlighting the importance of the logic of the learner
and of the LT’s ordered expected levels of sophistication in defin-
ing LTBI.
Although we hypothesize that placing LTs at the center of
instruction affects many facets of instruction, in this article we
attend to four particular ones: mathematical knowledge for teach-
ing, task analysis, discourse facilitation, and formative assessment.
Two reasons support our focus. First, substantive research on
instruction has been conducted within each of these areas, and we
can build on existing, widely used frameworks that summarize
such research. Second, the above-mentioned emerging research
on teacher learning of LTs provides initial evidence that trajecto-
ries can indeed affect each of these aspects of instruction.
Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching
The importance of teachers’ knowledge for teaching has been
long established in the research literature (e.g., Calderhead, 1996;
Clark & Peterson, 1986). However, ever since Begle (1972)
revealed that teachers’ advanced knowledge of mathematics
did not necessarily affect student learning, researchers in mathe-
matics education have turned to a nuanced examination of the
kinds of knowledge teachers need for teaching. Ball et al. (2008)
proposed a framework for examining teachers’ mathematical
knowledge for teaching (MKT) (Figure 1).
Original definitions. Ball and colleagues (2008) defined six sub-
categories of teacher knowledge under subject matter knowledge
(SMK) or pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Within PCK,
knowledge of content and students was defined as the knowledge
that combines knowing about students and knowing about math-
ematics. Knowledge of content and teaching was knowledge about
the design of instruction for a particular content. The authors
placed knowledge of content and curriculum as part of PCK, but
indicated they were still examining whether this was a category in
itself.
Under SMK, common content knowledge was defined as
knowledge of mathematics not specific to teaching whereas spe-
cialized content knowledge was the kind of mathematical knowl-
edge that is specific to the work of teaching. Specialized content
knowledge was exemplified as the knowledge teachers need
to explain patterns in student errors or decide whether a nonstan-
dard approach would work in general. The horizon content
knowledge category represented “an awareness of how mathe-
matical topics are related over the span of mathematics included
in the curriculum” (p. 403).
LT- based interpretation. Considering PCK from the point of
view of students’ voice, we define knowledge of content and
students as knowledge of the various levels of the trajectories
through which learners progress from less to more sophisticated
ways of thinking. This includes knowledge of the cognitive
steps that support such development and of the ways in which
learners at different levels approach certain mathematical tasks.
In this context, knowledge of content and teaching is knowl-
edge of ways to support learners’ cognitive development
through progressively more sophisticated levels of the trajectory
as teachers help students’ voices develop into accepted mathe-
matical perspectives. Knowledge of content and teaching
includes knowledge of tasks at various levels within the trajec-
tory and how to select and target tasks so that they can promote
both individual movement along the trajectory and content-
rich classroom discourse among all learners. Still within PCK,
knowledge of content and curriculum, from an LT perspective,
is knowledge of how to use student voice to choose and adapt
curricula that are typically built based on mathematical disci-
plinary perspectives.
We understand common content knowledge in relation to LTs
as knowledge of concepts and procedures represented at each level
of the trajectory, allowing one to perform the tasks associated
with that level, all the way to the overall mathematical goal indi-
cated at the end of the trajectory. We interpret specialized content
knowledge as knowledge of how to use one’s mathematical per-
spective to test the appropriateness of various solutions and rep-
resentations learners propose in their own voice. This knowledge
requires unpacking each level of the trajectory, explaining the
mathematical issues behind the levels so that teachers can make
sense of multiple mathematical explanations and representations
for ideas within the trajectory. Finally, we consider horizon con-
tent knowledge as knowledge of the most sophisticated under-
standing of a particular concept described at the highest level of a
particular trajectory, representing the ultimate mathematical goal
of a learning trajectory and the powerful mathematical general-
ization that is subsumed by the whole trajectory.
June/July 2012 149
 Figure 2. Mathematics task analysis framework
Reproduced from Stein, Grover, and Henningsen, 1996.
Task Analysis
The importance of tasks in teaching has been considered since
Doyle (1983) pointed to the fundamental role tasks play in
interactions among teachers and students around content. In
mathematics education, Stein et al. (1996) examined how
instructional tasks served as “proximal causes of student learn-
ing from teaching” (p. 459). They proposed a model to repre-
sent how tasks transformed (Figure 2) and showed how the
transition of tasks from curricular materials, to set up, to imple-
mentation was affected by factors such as teachers’ goals, knowl-
edge, and classroom conditions.
Original definitions. Stein et al. (1996) indicated that important
task features for the setup were those that supported student
engagement and reasoning, including tasks’ propensity to foster
multiple strategies, encourage multiple representations, and
engender mathematical communication. They noted the impor-
tance of tasks’ cognitive demand, defining this demand as the
thinking processes entailed in solving the task, from memoriza-
tion and use of rote algorithms (low demand) to the use of algo-
rithms with conceptual understanding and the use of complex
strategies such as connecting, conjecturing, and interpreting
(high demand). Directly influencing teachers’ decisions about
task features and level of demand were teachers’ knowledge and
goals for the lesson.
LT-based interpretation. When considering LTs, tasks’ features and
demand become closer connected to students’ logic instead of
guided by the logic of the discipline, mostly because LTs necessi-
tate a shift in teachers’ goals: from a narrow focus on the mathe-
matical objectives of a task to a broader examination of the relation
between tasks and student learning within a desired path for cog-
nitive development over longer periods of time. The shifts from
attention to the discipline to attention to students and from local
150 educational Researcher
to longer-term goals support students’ progress toward the larger
mathematical generalizations by recognizing students’ current
conceptions and relating those to the concepts that the LT
describes (disciplinary goals). Thus, tasks not only support student
learning at a particular level during a particular lesson, but they
have a role in fostering higher levels of sophistication over time.
Within the long-term frame that LTs bring to the setup of
tasks, important task features are the task’s capacity to elicit and
build on students’ present conceptions, shifting attention from a
mostly disciplinary focus on strategies or representations to a
focus on bringing forth students’ informal and previous instruc-
tional experiences in support of new conceptual developments
along the trajectory. Further, to support engagement, instruc-
tional tasks should span multiple levels of cognitive proficiency
described by the trajectory, anticipating multiple zones of proxi-
mal development among students in the classroom. This span
allows all students to engage with the task despite differences in
previous experiences.
Attending to the demand of a task, from an LT perspective,
encompasses an examination of the relation between the disci-
plinary goals of the task and students’ proficiency. A task that
addresses cognitive processes already developed by students will
be of low demand to those students as they can engage in the task
through the application of previously mastered ideas without
requiring new connections or the development of new concepts.
A task that addresses a cognitive process toward which students
are working requires students to examine the new ideas proposed,
make conjectures, and develop justifications as they work toward
mastery of the particular level in the trajectory. We contend that
by providing a cognitive development continuum, LTs suggest
that teachers examine the demands of a task not solely in relation
to content following the logic of the discipline but as relations
between tasks and students, following the logic of the learner.
Pedagogical Practices for Orchestrating Discourse
Given the connections between discourse and learning (e.g.,
Barnes, 1974; Tharp & Gallimore, 1988), educational research-
ers have attended to instructional conversations (Goldenberg,
1993) as a way to support learning. In mathematics education,
Lerman (2000) noted the field’s social turn when researchers
shifted attention from individual learners to the social origins of
knowledge. This turn led to changes in mathematics instruction
from silent and individual to verbal and social (Moschkovich,
2002).
Stein et al. (2008) described the challenges of promoting class-
room discourse that both respected students’ current thinking
(the logic of the learner) and supported the development of
important mathematical concepts (the logic of the discipline). To
support teachers, they offered a framework of five instructional
practices to facilitate discourse within student-centered learning
environments: anticipating, monitoring, selecting, sequencing,
and connecting. These practices strengthened teacher prepared-
ness for building on student’s voice while attending to mathemat-
ical goals.
Original definitions. The practice of anticipating requires teachers
to develop expectations for how students might interpret and
solve a problem, considering how students’ possible strategies or
mistakes related to the mathematics. In monitoring, teachers
examine students’ approaches as they work on a problem and
search for points of potential learning. Teachers carefully attend
to the work students are doing and check to see whether antici-
pated strategies emerge in the classroom. Knowing what strategies
are available in the classroom, teachers select particular ones to
share, making decisions regarding how to sequence presentations
for whole-group discussions. Smith and Stein (2011) noted that
“by making purposeful choices about the order in which students’
work is shared, teachers can maximize the chances of achieving
their mathematical goals for the discussion” (p. 10). As students
present their ideas, teachers support connections among shared
approaches to build toward the mathematical goal for the lesson.
LT-based interpretation. LTs provide teachers with an empirically
developed and tested organization for how student thinking
becomes more sophisticated over time, guiding teachers in cata-
loguing and ordering students’ approaches to certain tasks. Thus,
from an LT perspective, anticipating means examining the vari-
ety of strategies and misconceptions that are associated with dif-
ferent levels of proficiency in the trajectory, taking into account
what these strategies or misconceptions might reveal about stu-
dents’ mathematical understanding in relation to particular
learning goals. Through awareness of these documented and
highly expected strategies and misconceptions, as well as of
important landmarks and obstacles that define pathways through
the mathematical terrain, monitoring means close listening for
known multiple models of possible cognition, probing whether
and how these models manifest in students’ own approaches or
when students diverge from them.
As a basis for selecting and sequencing, LTs offer teachers an
explanatory frame for understanding how conceptions evolve over
time. Selecting and sequencing require teachers to consider stu-
dents’ strategies based on known paths as a guide to organize the
presentation of students’ work. Teachers select and sequence stu-
dents’ ideas for whole class discussion based on increasing sophis-
tication, providing for multiple zones of proximal development for
students with more or less refined ideas. Teachers may choose to
examine known misconceptions or specific barriers as they select
and sequence particular pieces of student work for presentation in
whole class discussions. Finally as the classroom conversation
unfolds, teachers’ knowledge of trajectories allows them to make
connections among students’ ideas, highlighting relationships and
pointing to developing mathematical ideas.
Stein and colleagues (2008) claimed that the five practices
allowed teachers to build on students’ ideas to shape class discus-
sions that supported important mathematical ideas. We suggest
that LTs provide the theoretical framework to these key peda-
gogical practices by offering teachers a map for interpreting stu-
dents’ voice and the organization of this voice to promote goals
that are progressively more sophisticated from a mathematical
perspective.
Formative Assessment
Black and Wiliam (1998) defined formative assessment as all
activities undertaken to “provide information to be used as feed-
back to modify the teaching and learning activities” (p. 2). These
authors empirically showed that whereas the effective use of for-
mative assessment is positively correlated with student achieve-
ment gains, the ways in which teachers incorporate formative
assessment to their practices vary. Since then, researchers have
identified effective formative assessment strategies such as setting
and sharing clear learning goals and providing feedback (e.g.,
Heritage, Kim, Vendlinski, & Herman, 2009; Wiliam, 2007).
Building on the work of the Formative Assessment for
Students and Teachers initiative (FAST, 2007), which identified
LTs as a critical component of formative assessment, Heritage
(2008) proposed a framework with three key elements for forma-
tive assessment: involving students in their own learning, elicit-
ing evidence of student learning, and providing feedback to
students. She began to define these elements in relation to LTs.
Original definitions. Involving students in their own learning
revealed the need for students to monitor their own progress,
requiring that teachers made their criteria for success explicit.
Heritage (2008) claimed that LTs offered teachers smaller learn-
ing goals toward larger, generalized understanding. These smaller,
more attainable goals better supported students in evaluating
their own learning. Eliciting information from students referred
to teachers’ need for a constant flow of information about student
thinking to examine how learning progresses toward desired
goals. Heritage noted that LTs’ clear progression of goals helped
teachers not only be explicit with students but also supported
teachers’ own interpretations of learning progress, allowing
teachers to plan for when, what, how, and whom to assess. For
formative assessment, appropriate feedback to students needs to
be timely, specific, connected to preestablished criteria, and
include suggestions for improvement. Heritage indicated that
teachers who know the learning goals established in LTs also
know what good performance looks like and can offer feedback
that helps students identify how their performances compared to
the one desired.
June/July 2012 151
LT-based interpretation. Building on Heritage’s initial connections
to LTs, we examined the role the logic of the learner plays in the
ways in which evidence of student learning and provide feedback
to students. We focused on these two elements of formative
assessment because enacting them in the classroom is more
strongly connected to student voice. Oftentimes, teachers elicit
student thinking and provide feedback to students by comparing
and contrasting students’ actual work to desired disciplinary
goals; that is, as teachers engage in formative assessment, they
make sense of and react to students’ voices from a disciplinary
perspective. However, when teachers use LTs, they can instead be
guided by the logic of the learner in their enactment of these two
elements of formative assessment.
When teachers elicit evidence of student learning, they are
engaged in asking students probing questions that elicit students’
own voices. By providing a framework for understanding the
logic of the learner, LTs help teachers probe around more targeted
concepts to understand the ways in which students’ cognitive
processes align with the trajectory. Because individual students’
paths of cognitive development are not in a one-to-one corre-
spondence with the LTs, trajectories both guide teachers’ probing
questions and support teachers in examining the boundaries of
what students do and do not understand. In providing feedback
to students, LTs help teachers identify a priori common strategies
and misconceptions around which to focus interactions with stu-
dents through follow-up questions and scaffolding. This feed-
back is guided by the LT representation of the logic of the learner,
supporting teachers’ closer attention to what students are learn-
ing versus what.
Conceptualizing LTBI
More than a decade ago, Schoenfeld (1998) observed that identi-
fying central aspects of teaching was important to clarify the
“pieces of the puzzle,” but missed an understanding of “how the
pieces fit together” (p. 2) into an explanatory framework. Recently,
Schoenfeld (2011) clarified that whereas a descriptive framework
is needed to depict important facets of instruction, theory brings
the pieces together into an explanatory framework that allows for
justifications and predictions. In what follows, we define the LTBI
descriptive framework, using research on LTs to refine and unify
various frameworks from research on teaching (pieces of the puz-
zle). In our conclusion, we examine LTBI as a possible explana-
tory framework for instruction (theory of teaching).
Initially defining LTBI as instruction that uses students’ LTs
as the basis for instructional decisions, we have examined the
consequences of placing LTs at the center of four frameworks for
teaching. We now argue that by interpreting the categories of
these frameworks around the concept of LTs, we created a more
integrated understanding of instruction based on how the logic
of the learner becomes more sophisticated over time. We propose
that, in doing so, our conceptualization of teaching changed
from a compartmentalized approach built around aspects of
instruction examined through research on teaching (Figure 3) to
a more integrated approach centered around research on LTs
152 educational Researcher
(Figure 4). Whereas it was important to initially identify and
define various aspects of instruction and make progress in obtain-
ing empirical evidence to support each piece of the puzzle, inter-
preting them in light of the now available LTs allows for the
integration of the various pieces into one framework for instruc-
tion. Thus, the time has come to move from the accumulation to
the reorganization of the frameworks; we claim that LTBI repre-
sents this reorganization.
In the previous sections of this article, we reinterpreted
important teaching categories around LTs. Table 1 organizes
these important teaching categories into the new LTBI frame-
work, specifying what it means to use LTs in instructional deci-
sions. Though our examination was related to mathematics
instruction, the reexaminations of similar teaching frameworks
using progressions in science, developmental stages in language
arts, or other discipline-specific trajectories may yield similar
results as any of these reexaminations would result in more
strongly connected conceptions of teaching that emphasize the
logic of the learner.
Overall, we contend that, despite disciplines, when teachers
organize teaching around learning from an LT perspective, the
trajectory serves as the unifying element for their instruction. For
us, the coherence of this vision is more than simply the bundling
of topics and related learning opportunities. It is a matter of
expressing priorities, sequences, and conceptual links among top-
ics and instructional experiences, both within the content domain
and perhaps more importantly across various domains.
Toward a Theory of Teaching
We suggest that research identifying students’ LTs in various dis-
ciplinary domains progresses in parallel with work toward con-
ceptualizing LTBI as a framework for teaching. Other facets of
instruction can be reinterpreted in light of LTs, adding to the
LTBI framework. But most important, we contend that the
resulting LTBI descriptive framework can come to serve an
explanatory and predictive role as we attempt to understand the
ways in which teachers’ knowledge of LTs guides the instructional
decisions they make. For example, further development of LTBI
can allow one to predict the tasks teachers might choose for a
particular groups of students or what teachers might look for
during small group interactions and what feedback they provide.
In both cases, teachers’ understanding of how the logic of the
learner progresses over time, combined with contextual factors,
can serve as justification for their decisions.
Attempts at explaining and predicting instruction based on
teachers’ knowledge of LTs represent the initial steps toward a
theory of teaching that is centered around research on learning.
However, as with all theories, we consider that as the concept of
LTBI becomes more clearly defined, it needs empirical examina-
tion to support or refute its strength as an explanatory framework
for teaching. Thus, a next step in the development of a theory of
teaching around LTs is to set up studies that can enhance or mod-
ify the effects we propose with the placement of LTs at the center
of instruction.
Figure 3. Conceptualizing teaching around different instructional frameworks

Figure 4. Conceptualizing teaching around learning trajectories

June/July 2012 153

 Table 1
Defining the Components of Learning Trajectory Based Instruction (LTBI)
Category LTBI Interpretation
Knowledge of Knowledge of the various levels of the
Content and trajectories through which learners
Students progress; knowledge of the cognitive
steps that support development and
of the ways learners approach certain
tasks.
Knowledge of Knowledge of ways to support learners’
Content and cognitive development along the tra-
Teaching jectory to help students’ voices
develop into mathematical perspec-
tives; knowledge of how to select and
target tasks to promote individual
movement along the trajectory and
content-rich classroom discourse.
Knowledge of Knowledge of how to use student voice
Content and to choose and adapt curricula that
Curriculum are built based on mathematical dis-
ciplinary perspectives.
Task Features Task’s capacity to elicit and build on
students’ present conceptions to
bring forth informal and previous
instructional experiences; task spans
over multiple levels of cognitive pro-
ficiency to allow all students to
engage with it despite differences in
previous experiences.
Anticipating Examining the variety of students’ strat-
egies and misconceptions that are
associated with different levels of
proficiency in the trajectory, taking
into account what these strategies or
misconceptions reveal about stu-
dents’ current mathematical under-
standing.
Monitoring Listening for known multiple models of
possible cognition, examining
whether and how these models mani-
fest in students’ own approaches or
when students diverge from them.
Eliciting Evidence Asking probing questions that help
understand the ways in which stu-
dents’ cognitive processes fit the
structure provided in the trajectory.
Notes
This manuscript is based on work supported by the National Science
Foundation under grant number DRL-1008364. Any opinions, find-
ings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report are
those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
National Science Foundation.
The authors would like to thank Drs. Steve Amendum, Karen
Marrongelle, and Sam Miller for their comments on a previous version
of the document.
154 educational Researcher
Category LTBI Interpretation
Common Content Knowledge of concepts and procedures
Knowledge represented at each level of the tra-
jectory to perform the tasks associ-
ated with each level, all the way to
the overall mathematical generaliza-
tion at the top of the trajectory.
Specialized Content Knowledge of how to use one’s mathe-
Knowledge matical perspective to test the appro-
priateness of various solutions and
representations learners propose in
their own voice; unpacking each
level of the trajectory, explaining the
mathematical issues behind the
levels.
Horizon Content Knowledge of the most sophisticated
Knowledge understanding that sits at the top of a
particular trajectory, representing the
ultimate mathematical goal of a
learning progression
Task Cognitive Demand The relation between the mathematical
goals of the task and students’ current
proficiency levels. Tasks that address
cognitive processes already devel-
oped by a student are low demand
and tasks that address cognitive pro-
cesses toward which students are
working are high demand.
Selecting and Considering students’ strategies based
Sequencing on known paths along progressively
more sophisticated strategies and
expected misconceptions that build
toward the larger mathematical gen-
eralization at the top of the trajectory
as a guide to organize the presenta-
tion of students’ work
Connecting Elucidating emergent relationships
among student’s approaches and
pointing to developing mathematical
ideas
Providing Feedback Identifying a priori common strategies
and misconceptions around which to
focus interactions with students
through follow-up questions and
scaffolding
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AUTHORS
PAOLA SZTAJN is a professor of Mathematics Education in the
Department of Elementary Education at North Carolina State
University, 317 Poe Hall, Campus Box 7801, Raleigh, NC, 27695-
7801; paola_sztajn@ncsu.edu. Her research focuses on practicing ele-
mentary teachers’ knowledge and professional development in
mathematics.
JERE CONFREY is the Joseph D. Moore Distinguished University
Professor of Mathematics Education at North Carolina State University,
Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, 1960 Main Campus
June/July 2012 155
Dr., Raleigh, NC 27606; jere_confrey@ncsu.edu. Her research focuses CYNTHIA EDGINGTON is a research associate at North Carolina
on research on learning trajectories aligned to the Common Core State University, Raleigh, NC 27965; cpedgington@gmail.com. Her
State Standards–Math and the design of wireless diagnostic assessment research focuses on pre-service and in-service teachers’ professional
systems. development.

P. HOLT WILSON is an assistant professor at the University of North

Carolina at Greensboro, P.O. Box 26170, Greensboro, NC 27402; Manuscript received October 6, 2011
phwilson@uncg.edu. His research focuses on practicing teachers’ knowl- Revision received February 7, 2012
edge and professional development. Accepted February 16, 2012

156 educational Researcher