Book: The Teaching Gap

A friend and colleague lent me a book called The Teaching Gap. It looks at maths teaching in the US and compares it with maths teaching in Japan and Germany. The authors looked at heaps of video footage of maths lessons in all three countries to draw their conclusions.

It's very interesting to read. I'll just jot two points that have come up so far:

• The authors firmly believe that the difference between cultures is much greater than the difference within them. Of course, maths teachers within one country vary greatly in skill and style, but they all look fairly similar when compared with maths teachers from another country.
• An unnamed education expert, when asked to summarise the difference in style between the three countries, said: "In Japanese lessons, there is the mathematics on the one hand, and the students on the other. The students engage with the mathematics, and the teacher mediates the relationship between the two. In Germany, there is mathematics as well, but the teacher owns the mathematics and parcels it out to students as he sees fit, giving facts and explanations at just the right time. In US lessons, there are the students and there is the teacher. I have trouble seeing the mathematics; I just see interactions between students and teachers."

The US authors are critical of maths teaching in the US, and see improvement in teaching style as necessary, rather than continual focus on class sizes and equipment. Their basis for criticism is the poor results US students achieve in the worldwide (41 countries) TIMMS study. After all, Japan always scores near the top, and their typical class size is 37!

I'd love to observe some maths lessons in Hong Kong, Japan, China, Singapore, etc. Judging from the Asian students I teach, they cover advanced material significantly earlier than we do in Australia.