Jeffrey Choppin directs the mathematics education program at Warner. He teaches courses related to the teaching and learning of mathematics and advises students with interests in mathematics education. His research focuses on how teachers adapt mathematics curricula, the resources they draw on in the process of adaptation, and on the impact of the stability of the instructional context on teachers’ effective use of curricula. He is particularly interested in the ways teachers collaboratively reflect on prior implementations of a task or unit to modify the materials in subsequent implementations. A related research interest is the impact of district policies on teachers’ access to resources important to the process of instructional design: these resources include common planning time with colleagues, curriculum-specific professional development, and expertise related to the use of the curriculum.
The context of much of Dr. Choppin’s research is middle school mathematics classrooms that are using NSF-funded mathematics curricula that are designed to help students to learn mathematics with understanding. He has recently embarked on a study of four districts that have used the same NSF-funded middle school curriculum for over 5 years to investigate the long-term nature of district policies, teachers’ practices, and uses of the curriculum. In the next year, he will extend the study by focusing more intensively on individual teachers in those same districts.
Dr. Choppin also has an interest in classroom discourse practices and equity issues in mathematics education. He has studied the teacher’s role in establishing argumentation in mathematics classrooms and has investigated the ways in which discourse practices in reform mathematics classrooms impact equitable participation. More generally, he is interested in how teachers, schools, and districts provide equal opportunities to learn for all students.
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