ABSTRACT
Both current and historical approaches to textbook adoption have been premised on the belief that teachers can be trained to implement instructional texts1 with fidelity and that this fidelity to the curriculum will lead to increased student achievement (Fullan & Pomfret, 1977; Snyder, Bolin, & Zumwalt, 1992). Snyder et al. state that a focus on fidelity entails “(1) measuring the degree to which a particular innovation is implemented as planned and (2) identifying the factors which facilitate or hinder implementation as planned” (p. 404). In this approach, support resources are designed to ensure that the developers’ intended curriculum is enacted. Teacher decision-making is relegated to following scripted procedures outlined in teacher guides. In these settings, teachers can be de-professionalized and the text can be seen as the primary tool for structuring students’ opportunities for learning. Remillard’s (2005) review of the research literature on teachers’ use of mathematics curriculum materials addresses the issue of a fidelity approach by documenting a distinction in how “use” is conceptualized. Researchers who frame curriculum material use as either following or subverting it, for example, assume that under ideal conditions, fidelity between the written and enacted curriculum can be achieved. A fidelity approach to implementation gives authority for both the mathematics that is to be taught and the sequencing and presentation of that content to text, and places strict adherence to it as the goal of teaching. This approach stands in stark contrast to other conceptualizations of use described by Remillard, including interpreting, drawing on, and participating with the text, and other approaches to implementation that characterize the text as a tool (see McClain, 2002; Meira, 1995, 1998; van Oers, 1996) and teachers as designers (see Chapter 2 of this volume). In these latter views, teaching is seen as responsive to students’ contributions, and the interplay
of text resources, mathematically significant discussions, and teacher intervention creates the setting in which learning can occur.
