Solving Equations: Exploring Instructional Exchanges as Lenses to Understand Teaching and Its Resistance to Reform

Using instructional exchanges as a theoretical construct, this study explores the influence of teachers’ institutional positions on the solving of equations in algebra classrooms. The experimental design uses surveys with embedded rich-media representations of classroom interaction to surface how teachers appraise correct solutions to linear equations where some solutions follow suggested textbook procedures for solving linear equations and others do not.