My article was a summary of a study done where eighth grade mathematical classrooms were observed in seven different countries throughout the world. The team observed classrooms in Australia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Japan, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and The United States. It is interesting to see how math is taught very differently in each country. In Japan they devote class time to solving just two or three problems in great length and detail. In Australia half of the class is spent doing procedural instruction and the other half the class worked in groups on more conceptual problems. In Hong Kong 75% of class time was spent by solving problems as a whole class, with everyone working together. In switzerland most of the students time in the classroom is spent working in groups. On the flipside, the Netherlands places the responsibility of learning mathematics on the student. The students teach themselves through their textbooks only using the teacher to answer any questions that arise when they are studying. They concluded by using the United States stating that the U.S. used by far the most time reviewing previously taught subjects and taught in a very procedural manner. The observers commented that few if any connections between concepts were made. At the end of the paper the team concluded that not every type of teaching would work in every country because of cultural differences.
I agree with the research team concerning the fact that each type of teaching would not succeed in every country. I know the United States is falling behind other world leaders in our mathematical testing scores. I think it is interesting to compare some of the top countries and their teaching methods and see how lacking the United States is in teaching mathematics to our students. I think the United States needs to take notes from this study and make culturally appropriate adjustments to our teaching curriculum. I think for starters we could adjust how much of our time we spend reviewing in our classrooms. If we stop doing so much review students will be more apt to study and remember the things they've been taught because they know it is not going to be presented to them again. Plus with the time we just gained from not reviewing so much we can spend that time teaching conceptually rather then procedurally so the students will be more likely to remember the things they've learned. I think another way to help the students to remember the things they've been taught is to apply and connect things. Apply the things to the students lives and connect the concepts to previous and future concepts to help the students draw connections. I think with slow and steady changes we can slowly achieve a more affective mathematical program.
Your blog entry was very interesting to read and I am interested in reading the article. I felt like your summary was very informative with out dragging on unnecessarily. It may be due to the topic of the article but I didn't feel like there was a very strong main point asserted.
ReplyDeleteI really liked what your article was about. You did a really good job of applying your article to what the United States should be doing. Was the study of mostly just what teachers said, or were students involved in the study too?
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you described the major characteristics of mathematics teaching in the different countries. I found this really interesting. But I also wondered if this was the main point of the paper, or if the author was trying to support the main point by discussing teaching in different countries. In other words, was the main point showing how US teaching differed from teaching in other countries to identify possible weaknesses in US teaching and suggest possible solutions?
ReplyDeleteI noticed that you took a stance in your critique paragraph concerning one of the positions the author took in the paper. However, I also noticed that the rest of the paragraph did not address or support your stance. In fact, your critique paragraph seemed to be about something completely different than your agreement that each type of teaching may not succeed in all of the countries. What would be a better topic sentence for your critique paragraph?
I felt your blog was very well done. I really understood your explanation of the article you read about but was sort of confused on the main idea you presented. I understood your 2nd paragraph and agreed with most of your points, but I did feel like I wasn't completely sure about the stance of the author on the main point.
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