Title: NATIONAL STANDARDS, FOUNDATION MATHMATICS AND ILLINOIS COMMUNITY COLLEGES: TEXTBOOKS AND FACULTY AS THE KEEPERS OF CONTENT

Abstract

Many developmental-remedial mathematics faculty and students are dependent on textbooks as the primary source for content, expectation for student performance, and pedagogy. Thus, learning opportunity is linked to the type and quality of the textbook, not just the faculty (McKnight et al., 1987; Schmidt, McKnight, Valverde, Houang, & Wiley, 1997; Valverde, Bianchi, Wolfe, Schmidt, & Houang, 2002). This study has two purposes.

Phase 1 addressed two questions: can textbooks be categorized by pedagogical intent; and, how many and which textbooks can be categorized by intent into pedagogical frames: habituation, enculturation and construction? The conceptual framework was adapted from Kirshners' crossdisciplinary framework (Kirshner, 2002; Valverde et al., 2002). Three developmental-remedial faculty categorized all textbooks. All textbooks commonly used in Illinois during the Fall of 2003 categorized as habituation while textbooks originally developed and supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) categorized as enculturation or construction.

Phase 2 compared seven habituation textbooks which represented Kirshner’s habituation category where their authors accounted for approximately 70% of all developmental-remedial textbooks used in Illinois during the Fall 2003; three textbooks which represented textbooks categorized as enculturation; and two textbooks which represented textbooks categorized as construction. All textbooks categorized as enculturation or construction were NSF curriculum projects. An adapted Conger (1996) instrument was developed and then used by three Illinois mathematics faculty knowledgeable both of developmental-remedial textbooks and the American Mathematics Association of Two-Year Colleges' standards document to rate textbooks. They rated each textbook for alignment with the AMATYC standards document. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to investigate the general level of standards alignment of textbooks after being categorized into each of Kirshner’s frames. Similarly, these textbooks as categorized were analyzed for alignment with the three main standards: content, intellectual development (expectation for student performance) and pedagogy.

Results confirmed that habituation textbooks (those textbooks most commonly used in Illinois during the Fall 2003) were not aligned with AMATYC standards document; while textbooks derived from NSF curriculum projects were moderately to highly aligned. Recommendations for practice include: to use standards-aligned textbooks faculty need to fundamentally change their teaching methods which requires significant support for faculty development; the IMACC-ISMAA curricula guidelines should be aligned with the AMATYC standards that includes alternative course descriptions for foundations mathmatics; pedagogical intent is the clearest indicator of AMATYC standardsalignment and a simplified assessment instrument identifying such textbooks has been created; and integrating the AMATYC standards into assessment plans of community colleges would enhance their adoption.