Writing lesson plans has traditionally been a big part of a teacher鈥檚 job. But this doesn鈥檛 mean they should be starting from a blank slate. Ideally, teachers are supposed to base their lessons on the textbooks, worksheets and digital materials that school leaders have spent a lot of time reviewing and selecting.
But a recent national survey of more than 1,000 math teachers reveals that many are rejecting the materials they should be using and cobbling together their own.
鈥淎 surprising number of math teachers, particularly at the high school level, simply said we don鈥檛 use the district or school-provided materials, or they claimed they didn鈥檛 have any,鈥 said William Zahner, an associate professor of mathematics at San Diego State University, who presented the survey at the April 2024 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Philadelphia. Students, he said, are often being taught through a 鈥渂ricolage鈥 of materials that teachers assemble themselves from colleagues and the internet.
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