Skip to main content

A Revolution in One Classroom: The Case of Mrs. Oublier

Item

Title

A Revolution in One Classroom: The Case of Mrs. Oublier

Abstract/Description

This essay probes the relationship between instructional policy and teaching practice. In the mid 1980s, California State officials launched an ambitious effort to revise mathematics teaching and learning. The aim was to replace mechanical memorization with mathematical understanding. This essay considers one teacher's response to the new policy. She sees herself as a success for the policy: she believes that she has revolutionized her mathematics teaching. But observation of her classroom reveals that the innovations in her teaching have been filtered through a very traditional approach to instruction. The result is a remarkable melange of novel and traditional material. Policy has affected practice in this case, but practice has had an even greater effect on policy.

Author/creator

Date

Volume

12

Issue

3

Pages

311-329

Resource type

Background/Context

Medium

Print

Background/context type

Policy

IRE Approach/Concept

Open access/free-text available

No

Peer reviewed

Yes

ISSN

0162-3737

Other unique identifier

Citation

Cohen, D. K. (1990). A Revolution in One Classroom: The Case of Mrs. Oublier. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 12(3), 311–329. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737012003311

Resource status/form

Published Text

Scholarship genre

Empirical

Comments

No comment yet! Be the first to add one!

Contribute

Login or click your token link to edit this record.

Export