Understanding Pedagogical design Capacity through Teachers’ Narratives

This article was published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol 27 number 4,
Author(s): Elizabeth A. Davis, Carrie Beyer, Cory T. Forbes, Shawn Stevens, "Understanding Pedagogical design Capacity through Teachers’ Narratives", Pages 797–810, Copyright Elsevier (May 2011).

Teachers’ learning goals and their knowledge of students play important roles in influencing exactly how a teacher adapts curriculum materials.

The authors asked two elementary teachers, Maggie and Catie, to write narratives about their use of and changes to particular reform-oriented science lesson plans.

Maggie drew on her knowledge of and experiences with students, as well as other knowledge, experiences, and resources, to make productive changes to account for her students’ prior knowledge and abilities.
Catie based her curricular adaptations on her learning goals—but these were not aligned with the learning goals of the curriculum materials.

The authors conclude that teachers need support in considering and making productive changes to curriculum materials. This may be particularly true for elementary teachers of science.