Tools, rules and teachers: The relationship between curriculum standards and resource systems when teaching mathematics

In this article, we explore the relationship between teacher practice, technological infrastructure, and national curriculum standards using one teacher’s experience as a focal point for developing the theoretical relationship between national curriculum and resource systems as it is becoming apparent in new digital learning platforms. We present a learning platform that connects national standards with specific learning objectives for lessons or teaching sequences and describes how this tool has been tested with teachers. The specific example is analyzed in detail using a combination of curriculum theory and the documentational genesis. We use this case to show how the intentions of the national curriculum standards becomes an integrated part of the teachers’ documentational genesis within the learning platform. Rules and national curriculum standards become parts of the teachers’ resource systems together with the learning platform, and this resource system influences the planned and enacted curricula and impact teachers’ work in ways not easily predicted.