An investigation of matmematics teachers' competency of textbook reading and a proposal for professional development program

This study investigates how elementary mathematics teachers read textbooks as a curriculum material and proposes a professional development program for effective use of textbooks. Thirty mathematics teachers participated in the study, and data were collected in three stages. First, a 5th grade mathematics textbook's segment covering one learning objective about simplifying and expanding fractions was given to the teachers and were asked this question: "What do think that textbook writers pay attention for teaching of this learning objective?". Second, some questions based on the predetermined conceptual framework (e.g., Do you think that problem-based teaching approach is used in teaching of the learning objective?) were posed to teachers to re-examine the same textbook segment. Third, some open-ended questions were posed to teachers to gain insights into reasons behind their answers to questions in first two stages, and also to determine contents for professional development program. The textbook segment was also examined by two mathematics education experts in the light of questions employed in the second stage and the experts' readings of this segment were compared with those of teachers. The findings revealed that teachers did not read textbook effectively in terms of the topics presented in conceptual framework (skills, difficulty and misconceptions, material and technology, mathematical modelling, measurement-evaluation). The findings also showed that the teachers mainly read textbook by "describing what is done", "providing suggestion", and "pointing out shortcomings" and this suggested that their reading was superficial. Based on the findings, a professional development program aimed to develop teachers' effective use and reading of textbook is proposed. Keywords: Mathematics curriculum, textbook reading, curriculum resource, professional development program