An Examination of Novice Teachers' Planning and Enactment of Ambitious Mathematics Instruction

Schools do not always meet the needs of all of their students. Teachers’ enactment of standards-based instruction is imperative to providing all students the opportunity-to-learn (OTL). While novice teachers (i.e., those with zero to three years of experience) are still developing their skill sets, they are equally accountable for providing students OTL. In mathematics, teachers’ enactment of standards-based instruction that provides students OTL can be understood by focusing on a construct called ambitious instruction. This explanatory multiple-case study focused on three novice elementary mathematics teachers’ planning and enactment of ambitious mathematics instruction because findings from a larger study suggest that these novices are capable of enacting such instruction. To understand how these teachers were enacting ambitious mathematics instruction, this study focused on factors that seemed to be associated with their planning and implementation of mathematics lessons.