J. CURRICULUM STUDIES, 2012, VOL. 44, NO.

4, 559–576

Teacher knowledge, curriculum materials, and quality

of instruction: Lessons learned and open issues

HEATHER C. HILL and CHARALAMBOS

Y. CHARALAMBOUS

This paper draws on four case studies to perform a cross-case analysis investigating the
unique and joint contribution of mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) and cur-
riculum materials to instructional quality. As expected, it was found that both MKT and
curriculum materials matter for instruction. The contribution of MKT was more preva-
lent in the richness of the mathematical language employed during instruction, the expla-
nations offered, the avoidance of errors, and teachers’ capacity to highlight key
mathematical ideas and use them to weave the lesson activities. By virtue of being ambi-
tious, the curriculum materials set the stage for engaging students in mathematical think-
ing and reasoning; at the same time, they amplified the demands for enactment,
especially for the low-MKT teachers. The analysis also helped develop three tentative
hypotheses regarding the joint contribution of MKT and the curriculum materials: when
supportive and when followed closely, curriculum materials can lead to high-quality
instruction, even for low-MKT teachers; in contrast, when unsupportive, they can lead
to problematic instruction, particularly for low-MKT teachers; high-MKT teachers, on
the other hand, might be able to compensate for some of the limitations of the curricu-
lum materials and offer high-quality instruction. This paper discusses the policy implica-
tions of these findings and points to open issues warranting further investigation.

Keywords: curriculum materials; mathematics; teacher knowledge; teach-

ing quality

Teacher knowledge and curriculum materials are two key instructional

resources that can have a significant contribution to the quality of instruc-
tion (e.g. Cohen et al. 2003, Stein et al. 2007). Consequently, during the
past two decades, an increasing number of studies have attended to both
resources, aiming to better understand how each, in isolation, contributes
to instructional quality. However, as discussed in Charalambous and Hill
(2012), research that simultaneously foregrounds and attends to both
instructional resources, seeking to understand how they jointly contribute
to instructional quality, is scarce. This collection of papers was intended
to make a first step toward filling this gap by exploring the quality of
instruction in a series of mathematics lessons delivered by nine teachers
using a Standards-based curriculum.

Heather C. Hill is a Professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, 6 Appian

Way, Cambridge MA 02138, USA; email: heather_hill@harvard.edu. Her interests centre
on mathematics education, teacher quality, and policy.
Charalambos Y. Charalambous is a Lecturer in Educational Research and Evaluation at
the Department of Education, University of Cyprus. His interests include instructional
quality, factors contributing to it, and its relation to student learning.
Journal of Curriculum Studies ISSN 0022-0272 print/ISSN 1366-5839 online Ó 2012 Heather C. Hill and Charalambos Y. Charalambous
http://www.tandfonline.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2011.716978
560 H.C. HILL AND C.Y. CHARALAMBOUS

Collectively, the set of these four case studies addressed the following
research questions:

(1) What is the unique contribution of teachers’ MKT to the mathe-

matical quality of instruction?
(2) What is the unique contribution of curriculum materials to the
mathematical quality of instruction?
(3) What is the joint contribution of teachers’ MKT and curriculum
materials to the mathematical quality of instruction?
(4) What factors mediate the contribution of MKT and curriculum
materials to the mathematical quality of instruction?

To answer these questions, each case study compared two or three

teachers teaching the same or very similar content. In all case studies,
teachers’ MKT level differed; in some case studies, the design of the cur-
riculum materials differed, as well. Tentative answers to the research
questions were formulated via comparison of the cases (Yin 2009). As
explained in Charalambous and Hill (2012), to conduct this cross-case
analysis we developed a table (see Table 1) summarizing the data yielded
from the previous four papers, which comprise the individual case reports
(see Charalambous et al. 2012, Hill and Charalambous, 2012, Lewis and
Blunk, 2012, Sleep and Eskelson, 2012). Using this table as an aid, and
looking across cases for common themes, in this concluding paper we
answer each research question in detail. In what follows, we present the
findings of this cross-case analysis organized by research question. Follow-
ing the approach pursued in the previous four case-study papers, we use
the five aspects of the mathematical quality of instruction summarized in
Charalambous and Hill (2012)—and their corresponding elements—as a
framework to organize our presentation and discussion of these findings.
We conclude by considering the policy implications of our results; we also
suggest future lines of research that may improve upon the hypotheses
and findings generated in this collection of papers.

MKT contribution to the mathematical quality of

instruction

We begin by considering the first research question, about the contribu-

tion of teacher MKT to instruction. In Charalambous and Hill (2012) we
hypothesized that MKT is a key contributor to the quality of instruction.
We speculated, in particular, that teachers with stronger MKT are more
likely to provide rich instruction that supports meaning-making; to under-
stand and appropriately respond to their students’ mathematical contribu-
tions and difficulties; to avoid errors and imprecision in language and
notation while presenting the content; and to offer coherent lessons that
unfold in ways that support meaning-making and understanding.
Evidence in Table 1 largely supports our hypothesis, suggesting that
MKT can legitimately be considered a key contributor to the
mathematical quality of instruction. In fact, MKT appears to make the
LESSONS LEARNED AND OPEN ISSUES 561

difference between high quality (Mauricio and Monique), solid quality

(Mercedes and Waleska), thin (Brad and Rebecca), and muddled imple-
mentations (Bonita and Wanda) of the CMP lessons. As Table 1 shows,
the quality of the lesson tended to decline with teachers’ MKT percentile,
and in every case save one (the pair of Waleska and Marie), the compari-
son between teachers yielded evidence showing the higher-MKT teachers
to be more capable of offering stronger mathematics instruction. This
assertion was also borne out by the close relationship between perfor-
mance on lesson-specific MKT tasks—what we called ‘local’ MKT—and
performance during the lesson. While Wanda had average MKT overall,
for instance, her performance on ratio and proportion tasks suggested a
poor understanding of the mathematical content covered in the Pizza
problem, and her implementation reflected this understanding. Mercedes,
whose overall MKT was not substantially different from Wanda’s, never-
theless answered an item about representing integer subtraction with chips
correctly, and her implementation of the integer subtraction lesson
reflected that understanding.
The four case-study papers, and in particular descriptions of high-
quality lesson implementations, suggested several ways in which strong
teacher MKT may afford specific advantages in teaching mathematics.
We organize our discussion of these affordances into two groups: those
that are common across all high-MKT teachers, including Marie, whose
disposition toward CMP led her instruction to look markedly different
than Mauricio and Monique’s; and affordances that were not common
across these teachers. We also consider whether and how mid- and low-
MKT teachers’ instruction contain any of these affordances, for, as we
shall see, this group had more variable mathematical quality of instruction
in relation to their overall MKT score.
In line with our first original hypothesis outlined above—which asserts
a positive association between teachers’ MKT and the quality of their
instruction (see also Charalambous and Hill, 2012)—our data suggest
that the most consistently observed common affordance of MKT involved
mathematical language: Mauricio, Monique, and Marie used mathemati-
cal language both densely and precisely. We use the term ‘dense’ to mean
that, during times of whole-class instruction, teachers infused their talk
with mathematical terms, resulting in descriptions and explanations rife
with technical language. In each case, these teachers also went beyond
simply using mathematical language to scaffold students’ understanding
and use of key mathematical terms. Mauricio, for instance, frequently
paused to emphasize and define mathematical terms for his students,
while Marie pushed Carlos to use a ‘common denominator’ in his presen-
tation to the class. This fluency and density was notably lacking in the
mid-MKT and low-MKT teachers, whose instruction featured fewer
mathematical terms and more linguistic imprecision (particularly Rebecca,
Waleska, and Wanda).
A second common affordance of MKT was the presence of mathe-
matical explanations. While these were stronger for Mauricio than Moni-
que and Marie, they were present in all three teachers’ instruction.
Mauricio excelled at infusing nearly every exchange with students with
Table 1. Main themes from the cross-case analysis.
562

MKT
Teacher percentile Performance on lesson-
(Case study) rank specific MKT task(s) Mathematical quality of instruction Enactment of the curriculum

Monique 94 High Strong meaning-oriented instruction; Follows curriculum closely; emphasizes key
(Case study 3) strong use of mathematical language; ideas of the lesson; ‘fills in’ to make
elicits, understands, and builds on student connections to big ideas and to add
thinking; no errors computational practice

Mauricio 93 High Strong meaning-oriented instruction; Follows curriculum closely; emphasizes key
(Case study 1) exceptional use of mathematical language; ideas of the lesson; ‘fills in’ to make
elicits, understands, and builds on student connections to big ideas and to add
thinking; no errors computational practice

Marie 89 Mid (higher on Emphasis on precise language and Follows tasks, but ‘does’ the work for
(Case study 4) standard-method notation; no errors; however, limited students; problems solved in only one way;
items, lower on non- emphasis on meaning-making, little lesson is review of standard algorithm
standard method elicitation or use of student ideas
items)

Waleska 50 Mid (lower on Meaning-oriented instruction; elicits and Follows curriculum closely; emphasizes key
(Case study 4) standard-method understands student productions, but does ideas and gives opportunities to consider
items, higher on non- not build on their ideas; small errors and multiple solution approaches; does not ‘fill
standard method imprecision in mathematical language in’ or make connections to other ideas
items)

Wanda 47 Low Lack of clarity around main ideas of Follows curriculum materials, gives
(Case study 1) lesson; imprecision in mathematical students opportunities to work on hard
language; inability to follow and build on problems; but then devolves tasks by
student thinking showing procedures; does not emphasize
key ideas of the lesson
(Continued)
H.C. HILL AND C.Y. CHARALAMBOUS
Table 1. (Continued).
MKT
Teacher percentile Performance on lesson-
(Case study) rank specific MKT task(s) Mathematical quality of instruction Enactment of the curriculum

Mercedes 42 High Moderately strong meaning-oriented Follows curriculum closely; ‘fills in’ to
(Case study 2) instruction; elicits, understands, and builds emphasize key ideas and to provide more
on student thinking coherence in the lesson activities

Brad 31 Low Meaning orientation is attempted through
(Case study 3) de-contextualized discussion of definitions
and potentially confusing metaphors;
teacher elicits student thinking, but
appears unable to follow and build on it
Follows the curriculum closely, but also
supplements with his own material;
instruction using the curriculum is of good
quality, instruction based on own material
is weaker
LESSONS LEARNED AND OPEN ISSUES

Rebecca 22 (No information Initially, passable meaning-oriented Instruction is adequate while following the
(Case study 2) available) instruction; radical switch to rules and scripted examples in CMP 1; less strong
facts, with problematic task sequencing when she diverges from curriculum
and evaluation of the relative difficulty of materials
those tasks

Bonita 7 Low Meaning orientation is attempted but Follows the curriculum, but cannot figure
(Case study 2) eventually teacher resorts to abstract rules; out how to use the suggested curriculum
teacher makes errors representation to teach with meaning
563
564 H.C. HILL AND C.Y. CHARALAMBOUS

mathematical meaning; Monique gave meaning to the rise-over-run calcu-

lation; and Marie provided brief snippets of meaning during her more
procedural lesson on fraction addition and subtraction. In mid-MKT
teachers, in contrast, explanations were more variably present. Mercedes
and Waleska, for instance, articulated accurate and helpful explanations
for the mathematical ideas in the lesson. Yet Wanda garbled an attempt
to explain why Selena’s method did not work and could not appropriately
describe the relationship between ratios and fractions.
Other aspects of meaning-oriented, or rich, mathematics—including
making connections across ideas and representations, and multiple meth-
ods—were observed in some, but not all of the high-MKT teachers. The
evidence suggests that this pattern apparently occurred because of high-
MKT teachers’ orientation to the curriculum materials and teaching of
mathematics more generally. For instance, Mauricio and Monique drew
explicit connections among and between important mathematical ideas
and different representations. Yet Marie’s disposition toward mathemat-
ics—in particular her focus on procedures and the correctness of
answers—seems to have resulted in a more traditional approach to
instruction. Notably, two mid-MKT teachers, Mercedes and Waleska,
also evidenced meaning-oriented instruction by making connections
between representations and encouraging multiple methods. However,
both teachers had solid knowledge of the lessons examined here, as sug-
gested by their ‘local’ MKT.
Directionality—which we define as sequencing and linking lesson
tasks and activities in order to help students gradually build the core
mathematical ideas of the lesson (cf. Hill et al. 2008)—was also observed
in some of the high- and mid-MKT teachers’ lesson enactments. For
example, Mauricio elegantly summarized the work done on the problem
of the day and used this summary to launch the Pizza problem. This
capacity to weave the lesson activities together and retain the focus on
key mathematical ideas was also a distinct feature of Monique’s enact-
ment. In Marie’s case, the evidence was more mixed, partly because of
her procedural orientation: Marie’s lesson did have directionality in
terms of promoting students’ procedural fluency, but lacked a conceptual
thread underlying and connecting the lesson activities and tasks. For the
mid-MKT teachers, the evidence was again mixed. Mercedes did an out-
standing job pointing to and discussing key mathematical ideas; her les-
son activities also unfolded as a coherent whole, each contributing to
students’ conceptual understanding of integer subtraction. This linking
of activities and highlighting of big mathematical ideas was not a distinct
feature of Waleska’s instruction, and it was totally absent from Wanda’s
and Brad’s lessons.
This pattern of more mixed evidence was also seen in the relationship
between teacher MKT and teachers’ eliciting, understanding, and using
student productions in instruction. Most notably, the stronger MKT cases
provided evidence that teachers both quickly understood and were then
able to capitalize on student ideas to move the lesson forward toward
larger mathematical goals.
LESSONS LEARNED AND OPEN ISSUES 565

Finally, we also consider the potential contribution of MKT to stu-

dent participation in meaning-making and reasoning, thought by many to
be a major component of the quality of mathematics instruction (Stein et
al. 2000, Boaler and Staples 2008). Our evidence suggests a complex rela-
tionship. While two high-MKT teachers, Mauricio and Monique, did
engage their students in mathematical thinking—although not consis-
tently—the third high-MKT teacher, Marie, did not. In contrast, mid-
MKT teachers (Mercedes, Waleska, and Wanda) as well as, at least more
intermittently, low-MKT teachers offered their students opportunities to
develop their own mathematical ideas through posing challenging tasks or
pressing students for explanations. Thus, we suspect that the association
between teachers’ MKT and involving students in meaning-making and
reasoning may be weak. Future research is, however, needed to explore
this association further; such studies could also examine the extent to
which this association might be mediated by other contextual factors,
such as students’ background characteristics, teachers’ expectations for
their students, and actual or perceived pressures and time constraints to
‘cover’ the curriculum.
However, one affordance of MKT in this area appears clear: teachers
who were oriented towards student exploration and meaning-making and
who had high MKT were better able to accurately launch the curriculum
tasks as compared to teachers with lower MKT. Two teacher pairs pro-
vide examples of this phenomenon: Mauricio was able to repair the mate-
rials and launch the Pizza problem smoothly; Wanda was not. Similarly,
Mercedes launched the integer-subtraction task by reviewing key ideas
that made the manipulations of blocks possible; Bonita could not do the
same. Additionally, Bonita and Wanda’s students engaged in a fair
amount of what Stein and Lane (1996) call ‘unproductive explorations’,
or demanding but ill-structured tasks on which students make little pro-
gress toward solutions or clarity. We therefore conclude that, although
MKT is probably not linearly or consistently related to engaging students
in mathematical thinking, the crafting of tasks and responding to student
thinking is. More research in this arena will, however, be needed to clarify
this complicated relationship.
Before leaving our summary of the contribution of MKT to the math-
ematical quality of instruction, we also briefly consider the ways in which
low MKT appears to have informed instruction. Examining the cases at
the bottom of Table 1, we see that both the low-MKT teachers had sig-
nificant difficulties presenting mathematical material clearly and correctly.
Bonita, for instance, formulated both correct and incorrect examples to
match integer operation problems. Her lesson also suffered from a lack of
directionality, in that her failure to use the chips correctly meant she
could not achieve the goals she set out to accomplish: provide the ratio-
nale for the integer subtraction rules. Rebecca encountered difficulty
when she departed from CMP 1’s planned sequence of examples.
We also note here that the clearest patterns were among the lowest-
and highest-MKT teachers, who enacted lessons that were not far from
one might expect given their ‘global’ MKT scores. Mid-MKT teachers’
performance (Brad, Mercedes, Waleska, and Wanda), on the other hand,
566 H.C. HILL AND C.Y. CHARALAMBOUS

was more variable. We argue that this reflects, in part, the contribution of
‘local’ MKT to lesson enactment. Mercedes’ answers to an MKT item
suggested she was familiar with the chip model for representing the sub-
traction of negative numbers; Wanda’s answers to MKT items suggested
she was less knowledgeable about ratio and proportion; and Brad’s diffi-
culties on the MKT test implied that his understanding of linear and
non-linear equations was not particularly robust. This variability may also
reflect, in part, the contribution of curriculum materials to these teachers’
instruction. We return to this theme below.
In sum, we are reasonably confident that we have identified some of
the unique affordances of MKT for instruction. This was due to the fact
that the case studies allowed for observing teachers with varying MKT,
while, at the same time, holding ‘constant’ other factors. We also exam-
ined the same or similar lessons and compared teachers who, with the
exception of Marie, had similar orientations toward the curriculum mate-
rials. While we did not ‘control’ for other differences (e.g. years of experi-
ence, gender) these have not been identified by other studies as strong
predictors of either MKT or the mathematical quality of instruction (Hill
et al. 2008).

Curriculum materials’ contribution to the mathematical

quality of instruction

We now turn to the contribution of the curriculum materials to instruc-

tional quality. In Charalambous and Hill (2012), we considered the cur-
riculum materials another contributing factor to the quality of instruction,
especially when they are sufficiently supportive for teachers (not only for
students). We also speculated that when providing adequate levels of sup-
port, curriculum materials can enable teachers to provide instruction that
supports meaning-making, to avoid mathematical errors and notational/
linguistic imprecision, and to engage students in cognitively demanding
activities. Provided that they present information on student misconcep-
tions and difficulties, we also anticipated that these materials would aid
teachers in responding to student productions effectively.
The contribution of curriculum materials to the lesson’s mathematical
quality was not as easy to observe in this set of cases, because we did not
hold both MKT and topic constant and vary curriculum materials, except
in one case (Case study 2). The findings reported below are thus more
speculative and grow from disciplined inquiry of both curriculum materi-
als and teaching in tandem (see the last two columns of Table 1).
We start by arguing that teachers’ use of the CMP materials demon-
strably shaped the mathematical quality of their instruction. By virtue of
being an ambitious, Standards-based curriculum, CMP designated a space
(Remillard 2000) for mathematical thinking on the part of the student,
pushing them to engage in meaning-making and reasoning. Simply by
using the materials, which set complex tasks and ask for students to
explain, generalize, and build mathematical arguments and connections,
teachers’ instruction looked different than what many have described as
LESSONS LEARNED AND OPEN ISSUES 567

characterizing conventional mathematics instruction in the US (cf. Stigler

and Hiebert 1999). For instance, the materials required that Mercedes
direct students’ attention to the logic involved in integer subtraction prob-
lems; they enabled Wanda to assign her students a challenging problem
and allow students to work on it for some time; and they provided Mauri-
cio and Monique with rich material for making meaning and connections.
Thus, in most cases, we speculate that the use of CMP improved the
mathematical quality of instruction beyond what would have been the
case had teachers been using more conventional materials.
In line with our hypothesis, as outlined above (see also Charalambous
and Hill, 2012), our case studies suggest that the supports designed into
the curriculum materials matter. The detailed CMP 1 script outlining the
steps involved in using the chips method to carry out integer subtractions,
along with the carefully sequenced curriculum examples, seem to have
enabled Rebecca to provide adequate instruction when she stayed close to
her curriculum materials. Although Wanda answered a Selena-like prob-
lem incorrectly on her MKT survey, she was correct during instruction, a
fact that might be attributed to the presence of the correct answer in the
teacher’s guide. Similarly, closely following the introductory task of the
integer subtraction lesson, Bonita passably introduced the idea of negative
and positive numbers and their correspondence to the coloured chips.
Brad’s mathematical talk and explanations were much stronger when rely-
ing on the curriculum materials than when he created his own examples
(e.g. when he used the worksheet he developed or when he employed the
‘two-by-four’ metaphor). Collectively, along with a recent study (Stein
and Kim 2009), these cases imply that when the materials clarify the
rationale behind proposed tasks and activities and make key mathematical
ideas transparent to teachers, they are more likely to have a positive
impact on instructional quality.
While this was the case generally, the data also suggest that CMP also
taxed teachers’ mathematical knowledge in ways that sometimes resulted
in poor-quality lesson implementation. This was most visible in two facets
of classroom instruction: providing meaning (through explanations or use
of representations) to the mathematics under study, and responding to
students. Bonita and Wanda, for instance, had difficulty providing mathe-
matical explanations for the topics under study: Bonita, although capable
of teaching the rules for integer operations, could not use chips to explain
how to subtract negative numbers, while Wanda could not clearly explain
why Selena’s method was wrong. Conventional materials may not have
broached the reasons for either phenomenon, and thus the challenges to
mathematical knowledge would not have been so great. Some teachers’
struggles in responding to students were also visible, particularly in les-
sons in which students were asked to invent a solution method. Wanda,
for example, could not make productive use of student thinking to move
the lesson forward; while her lesson enactment was, in general, weaker
than that of Waleska and Brad, the latter two teachers at times also failed
to make use of student mathematical thinking.
In a related vein, the setting of the Pizza problem itself added
additional challenge, sparking disparate student responses that were not
568 H.C. HILL AND C.Y. CHARALAMBOUS

anticipated or discussed in the materials. In turn, this created additional

demands for teachers: teachers had to launch the problem in a fashion
that would engage students in meaningful mathematical work—just like
Mauricio did. Moreover, they had to unpack and evaluate students’ con-
ventional and non-conventional ideas on the spot and respond to them
productively. These findings resonate with other studies documenting the
increased demands that Standards-based curricula impose on teachers
compared to more conventional curricula (Clarke 1997, Silver et al.
2005). In accordance with the results of a recent study (Brown et al.
2009), our findings also suggest that when the burden of implementation
of such demanding materials is placed on the teacher, the quality of
instruction could be seriously jeopardized.
Taken together, these cases suggest that curriculum materials are ulti-
mately limited in the support they can provide. They cannot anticipate
every gap in teacher knowledge and unique student solution or misunder-
standing (cf. Schwartz 2006); they are also inert, in the sense that they
cannot adjust their explanations to teachers’ needs, provide additional
examples, or provide feedback on the strength of teachers’ understanding.
As Remillard (personal communication, May 2010) argues, curriculum
materials attempt to simulate ‘teaching written down’—yet teaching can-
not be completely scripted, because so much of the work involves listen-
ing to students, parsing their ideas, and adjusting responses accordingly.
While our data suggest that the CMP materials might have improved the
teaching of mathematics over and above conventional instruction, curricu-
lum materials are not a panacea. This becomes especially apparent as we
turn to the interactions between curriculum materials and MKT,
described below.

MKT and curriculum materials’ joint contribution to the

mathematical quality of instruction

In exploring whether MKT and Standards-based curriculum materials

interact in contributing to the mathematical quality of instruction, we
considered whether hypotheses generated within each case study held
across the other case studies of this collection. Doing so, as Yin (2009)
explains, enables examining the generality of these hypotheses, especially
given that our data facilitated exploring these hypotheses by varying the
content and grade-level taught.
Based on our discussion in the previous two sections, we started by
considering how the two instructional resources—MKT and the curricu-
lum—in isolation might have contributed to instructional quality. Given
the overall positive influence both CMP and MKT appeared to have on
instruction, we speculated that the levels of curriculum support and tea-
cher knowledge would be linearly related to instructional quality. Yet, a
closer inspection of our data revealed three deviations from this trend.
These deviations were instances in which this trend did not hold, and the
data suggested that the contribution of each resource was dependent upon
the level of another. It is in these deviations we see the joint contribution
LESSONS LEARNED AND OPEN ISSUES 569

of the two instructional resources to the mathematical quality of instruc-

tion. Because we think that more research is needed in exploring this joint
contribution, in line with Yin’s (2009) suggestions, we present these devi-
ations as hypotheses warranting further investigation.
First, we observed that, for below-average MKT teachers—namely
those below the median MKT (i.e. Wanda, Mercedes, Brad, Rebecca,
and Bonita)—adequate to strong instruction was only evident when teach-
ers were closely following the materials, and when those materials suffi-
ciently supported the enactment of the lesson. The most notable example
here is Rebecca. Largely drawing on CMP 1 in the first part of her lesson,
Rebecca provided instruction that highlighted, at least to some extent, the
connections between the chips model and the mathematical ideas under-
pinning integer subtraction. Similarly, Bonita also provided an adequate
discussion of the initial integer-addition problem by having students recite
the text in the curriculum materials and asking questions that helped clar-
ify how the chips model could be used to represent positive and negative
numbers. In the same vein, Brad provided adequate instruction when he
recited verbatim the answers and explanations from his curriculum
materials.
However, when low-MKT teachers departed from the materials,
instruction suffered. This could be seen most clearly in the case of
Rebecca, whose departure during the second part of her lesson featured
an ill-designed sequence of activities and her incorrect appraisal of the
relative difficulty of the assigned tasks. This was also true in one teacher
with middle ‘global’ MKT, but low ‘local’ MKT: when Brad departed
from his curriculum materials, he offered confusing and flawed meta-
phors (e.g. the ‘two-by-four’ metaphor for the ‘staircase’) and engaged
students in reciting definitions without helping them see the meaning of
these definitions through interpreting concrete data, as the curriculum
intended.
Second, when the materials were not sufficiently supportive, or even
increased the difficulty of lesson enactment through their design, low-
quality enactments occurred in these below-average classrooms. This was
particularly evident in Wanda’s case, where the materials featured a
poorly worded task and insufficient guidance for handling students’ solu-
tion approaches—especially those related to slicing the pizzas. We argue
that these deficiencies, when coupled with Wanda’s shaky knowledge of
the topic, led to unproductive explorations of the Pizza problem. Also
telling is Bonita’s implementation, especially her unproductive attempts to
represent integer subtraction with the chips, which could be a result of
both her low MKT and the scattered and non-comprehensive treatment
of integer subtraction in CMP 2.
Thus, we argue that the curriculum materials seem to have created, for
below-average MKT teachers, at least, more variance in the mathematical
quality of instruction than would have been present otherwise. In some
cases, the materials supported accurate and meaning-oriented—although
not expert—mathematics instruction. In other cases, they appeared to have
complicated teachers’ work with students past what their tenuous MKT
could support. Which path a specific lesson took depended highly on the
570 H.C. HILL AND C.Y. CHARALAMBOUS

degree to which teachers followed or departed from their curriculum

materials, the level of demand for enactment the curriculum imposed on
the teacher, the level of support the materials provided for enactment, and
the specific MKT related to the lesson possessed by the teacher.
Our evidence also suggests that there was a third, positive, deviation
from the general trends regarding MKT, curriculum materials, and
instructional quality. While mid-MKT teachers used the materials faith-
fully and competently, high-MKT teachers, with the exception of Marie,
used them and improved upon them. This took place in several ways.
Mauricio, for instance, ‘repaired’ the Pizza problem by clarifying the ini-
tial task (‘more pizza’) for students. He also explicitly connected ratio
comparisons to fraction comparisons; while this was briefly covered in the
Mathematics Background essay, it was not featured in the specific lesson.
In Monique’s case, this improvement was evident in several features of
her instruction including her preface of the curriculum task with a simpler
problem; her presentation of big mathematical points in multiple ways
(tables, graphs, and equations); her provision of easy ways to remember
key mathematical ideas; and her skilful punctuation of the lesson with the
most important take-away ideas. Both teachers knew to dwell on the key
ideas of the lesson—for Mauricio, the distinction between additive and
multiplicative comparisons, and for Monique the meaning and nature of
linear relationships. In some cases, this required ‘reading between the
lines’ of the curriculum materials to determine the core mathematical
ideas, elaborate, and enrich the mathematics presented to students.
To the extent that this hypothesis about high-MKT teachers ‘repair-
ing’ and improving their curriculum materials holds, this cross-case analy-
sis complements other studies on teachers’ use of the curriculum
materials by clarifying that the quality of the adaptations that teachers
make might hinge on their MKT. In fact, this proposition aligns with
Sherin and Drake’s (2009) observation that the quality of teachers’ curric-
ulum adaptations—e.g. their capacity to create additional transitional
activities rather than simply modify or omit curriculum activities—was a
function of teachers’ own understanding of the content they were
expected to teach.

Other contributors to the mathematical quality of

instruction

Finally, the case of Marie suggests an important exception to the trends

above. In the district where this study was conducted, schools had the
opportunity of opting out of CMP; perhaps because of this opt-out, per-
haps because of the work district leaders did to convince teachers of the
value of the curriculum, or perhaps because teachers themselves had been
convinced by using CMP for several years, we found few teachers who
did not embrace CMP. While many, Mauricio and Monique included,
chose to supplement CMP with more traditional curriculum materials
LESSONS LEARNED AND OPEN ISSUES 571

and computational exercises, all but one, Marie, did endorse the curricu-
lum’s major goals and methods.
Marie’s case demonstrates that dispositions matter. Her enactment of
the Land Sections problem was significantly different from what the curric-
ulum intended, and also significantly different from her comparison tea-
cher, Waleska. Marie herself ascribed this to her focus on accuracy and
fluency with a narrow range of procedures. As Sleep and Eskelson (2012)
point out, this phenomenon is not news to most studying the contribution
of curriculum materials to instruction; in fact, the literature is rife with
examples illustrating that teacher dispositions matter in implementing
reform-oriented curricula (e.g. Collopy 2003, Remillard and Bryans
2004). Prior research has also repeatedly documented the proceduraliza-
tion of complex tasks and described teachers’ propensity to take over and
present the content, rather than allowing students to develop and justify
mathematics on their own (e.g. Henningsen and Stein 1997, Stigler and
Hiebert 1999, Boaler 2002). However, Sleep and Eskelson’s (2012) paper
suggests that the relationship among orientations, curriculum use, and
quality of instruction seems to be more nuanced than what previous stud-
ies have suggested. Largely building on Waleska’s case, the paper adds
another component to the mix, MKT, suggesting that productive orienta-
tions alone do not suffice for enacting rich and ambitious curricula; to real-
ize such curricula to their full potential, strong MKT appears to be a
necessary component. Wanda’s case also lends support to this argument.
Despite her fairly favourable orientation toward CMP, Wanda fell far short
of using the curriculum to help students build connections between key
mathematical ideas or forge strong conceptual understanding of the dis-
tinction between additive and multiplicative relationships.
We anticipate that there are other factors which, in isolation or in
conjunction with MKT and the curriculum materials, contribute to
instructional quality, and which could not be detected due to the design
of this study. District settings and policies (e.g. test preparation activities)
may impact the coherence and integrity of the mathematics taught in
classrooms; professional development may interact with both MKT and
curriculum materials in specific ways. We also expect that teachers’ expe-
rience with curriculum materials—and in particular successive enactments
of the same grade and lesson (cf. Choppin 2009), coupled with teachers’
active and deliberate reflection on their practice—could influence the
quality of instruction. Finally, we acknowledge that our dataset did not
allow examining several of the components proposed by Remillard (2005)
to contribute to the quality of instruction, such as teachers’ identity, peda-
gogical design capacity, and tolerance for discomfort, or the structures,
voice, and look of the curriculum materials. These key issues are for other
studies to take up.

Conclusion

The main purpose of this set of case studies was to provide a close look
at the contribution of both teachers’ knowledge and curriculum materials,
572 H.C. HILL AND C.Y. CHARALAMBOUS

alone and in tandem, to the quality of instruction. Both are considered

prime resources for teaching mathematics (Ball and Cohen 1996, Cohen
et al. 2003) and both are thought to leave a significant mark on the qual-
ity of instruction (Remillard 2005, Stein et al. 2007). We were able to
examine these relationships because of a unique dataset that enabled us
to investigate how variations in teachers’ MKT and in some cases varia-
tions in the levels of curriculum support—as revealed through detailed
curriculum analysis—were associated with variations in instructional qual-
ity. At the same time, information on teacher background characteristics
enabled us to consider some other resources, such as teachers’ disposi-
tions, that might also contribute to instructional quality. By replicating
this exploration over a set of four case studies, we were also able to gener-
ate hypotheses and test their tenability by varying the content and the
grade-level taught.
We found that MKT and curriculum materials both matter, as did tea-
cher dispositions toward curriculum materials and instruction. However,
there were only a few unequivocal regularities in our data: the highest-
MKT teachers typically taught excellent lessons, a pattern we have seen
elsewhere (Hill et al. 2008, 2010, Lewis 2010), and low-MKT teachers
often struggled. For middle-rank MKT teachers—those occupying the two
middle quartiles of MKT—who, by definition, constitute the largest group
of US teachers, the relationship was more complex than straightforward.
Dispositions mattered, but so did more nuanced factors such as teachers’
‘local’ MKT and the specific supports embedded in the curriculum materi-
als. This relationship is also interactive: MKT seems to have influenced
the use of curriculum materials and, we surmise, the curriculum materials
might have influenced MKT over the period of several months or years.
We comment on this more below, as we consider open issues.
We view these findings as tentative, given the design of our study and
attendant limitations. We examined only one set of Standards-based cur-
riculum materials, varying neither within the set of Standards-based mate-
rials nor across to more traditional curricula. Except for Rebecca and
Bonita, we also did not permute aspects of the curriculum itself—namely,
more supportive and less supportive curriculum on the same topic taught
by two teachers with similar MKT-levels. These, along with a study that
examines teachers’ use of curriculum materials to plan instruction, are
logical next steps for inquiry in this arena. Next steps also include varying
the subject under exploration (e.g. language arts, science, etc.), the type
of knowledge sampled (both in terms of conceptualization and measure-
ment), and the educational and cultural settings in which the study is
conducted (e.g. conducting similar studies in countries with centralized
educational systems and/or educational systems in which all teachers are
expected to use a single curriculum/textbook series or a very restricted
range of mandated curricula and textbook series).
We see several other pressing questions that arise from this research.
To start, we are concerned that, for some low-MKT teachers, the Stan-
dards-based lessons were of poor quality. If this were a more general pat-
tern, it would be of significant concern to policy-makers, district
personnel, and teachers. Previous research—dating in some cases back to
LESSONS LEARNED AND OPEN ISSUES 573

the 1990s (Cohen 1990, Heaton 1992, Putnam et al. 1992, Spillane and
Zeuli 1999)—suggests these may not be isolated instances. A wider study
of implementation of such materials by low-MKT teachers is urgently
needed.
Second, we also see the possibility that MKT itself may be informed by
the use of curriculum materials. Although our research design could not
identify such learning, it seems logical that, as teachers gain experience with
tasks, student responses, and connections between lessons and mathemati-
cal ideas, both their knowledge and teaching would improve. However, for
such learning to occur, as Bruner (1960) suggested over half a century ago,
a curriculum must be first and foremost educative to teachers—an idea cor-
roborated by recent findings documenting that multiple enactments of the
same curriculum alone do not necessarily lead to teacher learning, especially
when it comes to novices (Grossman and Thompson 2008). Consequently,
it remains open to further investigation how much teachers actually learn
from enacting their curriculum materials and how the curriculum materials,
alongside professional development programmes supporting focused analy-
sis of and reflection on such materials, can be structured to facilitate contin-
uous teacher learning and growth. The depth and contextual nature of such
learning also bears examination. A more systematic study of these issues
appears to be of great benefit to the field.
Another question related to teachers’ curriculum implementation has to
do with the dynamic interaction between teachers’ orientations and use of
curriculum materials. The case of Marie shows that she used the materials
in ways that conformed to her pre-existing notions about the discipline of
mathematics and how students learn mathematics. Whether and how teach-
ers’ pre-existing notions evolve through use of curriculum, either as part of
professional development or separate from it, warrants further study.
This study also holds lessons for education policy. In many respects,
the curriculum studied could be considered ‘educative’, for it was
designed to support and educate teachers about the content they were
expected to teach (cf. Lappan and Phillips 2009). Indeed, our findings
support the intuitions found in articles on educative curriculum materials
(cf. Ball and Cohen 1996, Davis and Krajcik 2005, Schwartz 2006): that
teachers can benefit from materials, particularly when those materials are
well-designed with the teacher-learner in mind. The comparison of CMP
1 and CMP 2’s treatment of integer subtraction, for instance, demon-
strated the effect of seemingly simply curricular decisions, such as where
to place key information, how to present it, and how detailed to make
that information.
Our data also suggest that teachers need focused opportunities to learn
how to teach specific lessons through professional development, lesson
study, or coaching and mentoring. Whether such opportunities are present
is not known; in fact, many studies show that teacher professional develop-
ment tends to be general and brief, at least in the US (Hill 2007). Focused,
continuing professional development is, in fact, recommended by the
authors of CMP themselves (Lappan and Phillips 2009). We also concur
with Grossman and Thompson (2008), who argued that both pre-service
and in-service teachers need to systematically engage in curriculum analysis
574 H.C. HILL AND C.Y. CHARALAMBOUS

and reflection. Observing how a group of English-language teachers used

their curriculum materials over a sequence of years, these scholars con-
cluded that, ‘[t]he limitations of curriculum materials, if not addressed by
teachers … become limitations in what students are able to learn from the
enacted curriculum’ (p. 2023). Mercedes’ case could not be more telling in
this respect. In planning her instruction during the second year of using
CMP, Mercedes reflected on and learned from the struggles she encoun-
tered the first year she was using these materials to teach integer operations.
This active and deliberate reflection on her practice, as she claimed, helped
her to ‘fill in [her] curriculum’ (Charalambous et al. 2012) and conse-
quently address curriculum limitations in the presentation of this topic. In
turn, this ‘filling in’ appeared to have enabled Mercedes to productively
engage her students in meaning-making activities around integer operations
the second time she was teaching this topic.
In Charalambous and Hill (2012), we invited the reader to avoid
thinking of this set of papers as a critique of either a specific curriculum
or the featured teachers, but rather consider this paper collection as a
study seeking to help us better understand the conditions under which
ambitious curricula can help lift the quality of instruction and ultimately
student learning. A straightforward lesson that one could draw from this
collection of papers is that attempts to improve instructional quality
should be directed in two different ways: to both strengthen teachers’
MKT and produce more supportive/educative curriculum materials for
both teachers and students. Yet, an alternative conclusion could also be
drawn. By design, curriculum materials will always be limited in the level
of support they provide to teachers; similarly, just like the nine teachers
featured in these papers, teachers will always differ in their MKT levels.
Recognizing these realities suggests that more effort and resources should
be invested in understanding how limitations in curricula can be compen-
sated by teacher knowledge, and vice versa, how limitations in teachers’
knowledge can be compensated by the affordances of the curriculum
materials. These understandings could, in turn, inform teacher education
and textbook development. It is here that the challenge lies for research-
ers, curriculum developers, and practitioners alike.

Acknowledgements

The research reported in this paper was supported by NSF grants REC-
0207649, EHR-0233456, and EHR-0335411. The authors would like to
thank the teachers who participated in this study as well as Merrie Blunk,
Samuel Eskelson, Jennifer Lewis, and Laurie Sleep for their comments on
earlier versions of this paper.

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