ICUBIT is a research and development project focused on teachers' use of mathematics curriculum materials. The project has two goals: 

• Identify the teacher capacities needed for productive use of mathematics curriculum materials
• Design tools to measure these capacities.

The development activities focus on designing and refining tools that allow researchers to gather data on and measure teachers' capacities and practices required for productive use of mathematics curriculum materials.

The research activities involve employing these tools to gather and analyze data on teachers' curriculum use and the capacities and supports critical to it. The ultimate aim is to develop a conceptual model of these capacities to guide future research and professional development.

Activities

Our specific activities include:

• Develop an instrument to assess teachers' capacity to identify the mathematical concepts and connections embedded within curriuclum materials.
• Determine the relationship between mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) and teacher's recognition of mathematical concepts in written curriculum materials.
• Characterize the ways in which the ability to identify mathematical ideas underlying curriculum materials relates to actual classroom practice.

Curriculum Programs

The ICUBiT Project uses five elementary mathematics programs as the basis for research and development activities. These programs are listed below. We intentionally selected three standards-based programs, developed with NSF funding, and one commercially developed program. We also selected Math in Focus; Singapore Math by Marshall Cavendish (published for a U.S. audeince and distributed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) becaue it is gaming popularity in the U.S. In each case, we looked at the most recent edition of the curriculum.