Lesson planimation: prospective elementary teachers’ interactions with mathematics curricula

Curriculum materials are integral to the mathematics classroom, yet little is known about how teachers read curriculum in order to envision enactment. Through an assignment involving an approximation of actual teaching practice, we investigated prospective teachers’ documentational genesis (Pepin et al. in ZDM 45:929–943, 2013) from curriculum materials to their visions of enactment based on those materials. In mathematics methods courses, we assigned prospective teachers (N = 33) to one of two widely adopted curricula to generate a lesson plan and corresponding animation. We analyzed data from the assignment, termed lesson planimation, to reveal how prospective teachers use curriculum for the purposes of enactment. Prospective teachers drew upon curricular elements to different extents, with goals ranging from concern for learning mathematical ideas to student enjoyment of math class. Implications for theory, curriculum, and instruction are discussed.