A major influence on mathematics teachers' instruction is their beliefs. However, teachers' instructional practices do not always neatly align with their beliefs because of factors perceived as constraints. The purpose of this article is to introduce a new approach for examining the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices, an approach…

We argue that large-scale, standards-based improvements in the teaching and learning of mathematics necessitate advances in our theories regarding how teaching affects student learning and progress in how we measure instruction. Our theory--an embodiment of the interaction of high and low levels of two constructs that past research has shown to…

An increased emphasis on writing standards has led many U.S. states to incorporate on-demand writing assessments into their test-based accountability system. We argue this creates political and pedagogical tensions for teachers to navigate. We discuss how rubric conceptualization (1) is a process wherein a teacher iteratively (co-)constructs…