Launching forth: preservice teachers translating elementary mathematics curriculum into lessons

Translating a mathematics lesson from curriculum materials into instruction is not straightforward, and launching, or beginning, a lesson such that students will become productively engaged in the target mathematics is nontrivial. The purpose of the study was to investigate preservice teachers’ curricular noticing as they draw upon curriculum materials to design instruction, with a focus on how to launch that lesson. We engaged preservice elementary licensure students at two universities in a four-part process of analyzing mathematics curriculum, planning a lesson, demonstrating their visualization of enactment through animating their lesson launch, and reflecting on the process. Findings indicate that the focal case study pair modified the curricular materials to model mathematical aspects of fractions, adapted the introduction of key academic vocabulary, and introduced materials not mentioned in the curriculum to draw children into the lesson. We discuss implications for preservice teachers’ planning of the lesson launch and their curricular noticing.