Constant and Emerging Characteristics of Mathematics Lessons Under Reform Pressure in Chinese and U.S. Urban Elementary Schools

• In Event: 60.023 - Content Representations and Pedagogical Moves in Chinese and U.S. Mathematics Classrooms: Lesson Video Analyses at Elementary, Middle, and High School Levels

Abstract

Purposes: US and Chinese teachers are pressed to reform mathematics teaching towards similar instruction (Liu, 1995; Romberg, 1999) although they taught differently before (Schleppenbach, Flevares, Sims, & Perry, 2007; Stigler, Lee, & Stevenson, 1987). This study explores whether and to what extent elementary teachers change their teaching as the reforms expect and how the existing teaching organizations and cultures influence their transformations in the two countries.
Theoretical Framework: Two theoretical lenses frame this study. The culturally scripted lens sees mathematics teaching as contextualized and its change as a gradual process shaped by its organization and culture (Stigler & Hiebert, 2009), which frames the study’s focuses, questions, and interpretation. The assumption, the quality mathematics teaching involves both mathematics content and process resembling mathematicians’ work and pedagogical discourse consistent with how children learn (Putnam, Lampert, & Peterson, 1990), guides the data collection and analysis in the study.
Methodology: The participants were three Chinese and three US fifth-sixth grade teachers from different urban schools. Three lessons from each participant on multiplication and division were analyzed for mathematics representations including concepts covered, their sequence, and relationships and for pedagogical moves including instruction sequence, time, approach, and interaction. Interviews with each participant on his or her mathematics teaching, school contexts, and curriculum were coded for the themes relevant to the study’s questions. The curriculum materials relevant to the lessons were coded for the specific mathematics and pedagogical expectations and suggestions.
Findings and Discussion: Instead of their traditional role as “the actors” to show off their knowledge, Chinese teachers became the conductor who led students to weave various concepts with each other using different approaches through a lock-step pedagogical sequence to help develop their mathematics understanding and solve mathematics problems as suggested by the reformed curriculum. Rather than functioning as a teller and reinforcer of factual mathematics ideas traditionally, US teachers were the consultants who helped individual students solve a series of related yet increasingly difficult problems from the curriculum. Both cases suggest that teaching can be improved when the reform curriculum carries power and offers specific suggestions (Cohen & Spillane, 1992). However, in Chinese lessons, mathematics was still a coherent system with some concepts built on the others and public verification of mathematics ideas to reach a shared understanding and constant reviews of what was learned were frequent practices that are consistent with the traditional Chinese collective cultural value. In US lessons, mathematics ideas were more often individually constructed based on students’ level and pace that is consistent with the traditional US individualist values, which supports that teaching transformation is a gradual and culturally scripted process (Stigler & Hiebert, 2009).
Significance: The study contributes to the scholarly understanding about the characteristics of mathematics lessons under the reform pressure in each country. It implies that instead of debating over whether or not curriculum standards should be used to improve mathematics teaching, we should focus on how the reform curriculum and teaching contexts can be restructured to improve mathematics learning in different contexts.

Author

• Jian Wang, Texas Tech University