A new video study of methods for teaching eighth-grade mathematics in seven countries shows that there is no single method of teaching mathematics among the high-achieving countries.

Furthermore, according to the report, the teaching of mathematics in the United States differs in striking respects from the ways mathematics is taught in high-performing countries.

The study's first report, Teaching Mathematics in Seven Countries: Results from the Third International Mathematics and Science (TIMSS) 1999 Video Study, summarizes thousands of hours of videotape of mathematics lessons taken in representative samples of schools in the United States and six other countries, Australia, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, the Netherlands and Switzerland, all of which outperformed the United States on an earlier TIMSS mathematics assessment.

"This study allows us to learn from those countries whose students excel in mathematics," said U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige. "We know that our current practices have not achieved the success we demand. So, we've asked experts to review the teaching practices of high-achieving countries to inform our teachers and staff in our teacher preparation programs how to improve U.S. teaching practices."

The new international study was released today by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, which is within the Institute of Education Sciences, along with its sponsoring partner, the National Science Foundation. The researchers for this study collected and analyzed 638 videotaped lessons of mathematics from seven countries to gain valuable national-level information about classroom teaching.

"The TIMSS 1999 Video Study is important to our basic understanding of what happens in the classroom every day," said NCES Associate Commissioner Val Plisko. "It can provide the basis for future research into those aspects of teaching that most influence students' learning."

Plisko added that this report offers only initial findings from the new video study. At a later date, NCES will release two additional reports. One, on eighth-grade science teaching, will be a first for the nation and its international partners. Another upcoming report will be on U.S. mathematics teaching as captured in the earlier 1995 study compared to the new 1999 data.

Among the findings in the report was that countries often differed in the way that mathematics lessons were structured and how the content was presented to and worked on by students. For example:

• Review of previously taught lessons plays a larger role in mathematics lessons in the Czech Republic and the United States than in the five other countries where more time is devoted to introducing new content. Indeed, a greater percentage of eighth-grade mathematics lessons in these two countries was spent entirely in review of previously introduced content than in Hong Kong and Japan (28 and 28 percent of lessons vs. 8 and 5 percent, respectively);

• Lessons in Hong Kong included a larger percentage of problems per lesson targeted at using procedures, e.g., applying a formula, (84 percent) than in most of the other countries (ranging from 41 to 77 percent). Mathematics lessons in Japan, on the other hand, included a larger percentage of problems per lesson that emphasized making connections among mathematical facts, procedures and concepts (54 percent) than lessons in most of the other countries (ranging from 13 to 24 percent);

• When the researchers examined the ways in which the mathematical problems in the lesson were actually discussed and worked out during the lessons, they found that eighth-grade mathematics lessons in Australia and the United States were the least likely to emphasize mathematical connections or relationships (8 and less than 1 percent, respectively; other countries ranged from 37 to 52 percent);

• Eighth-graders in the Netherlands were more likely than their peers in four of the other countries to encounter problems during the lesson that included a real-life connection (42 percent of problems per lesson; other countries ranged from 9 to 27 percent). In the other countries, problems were more likely to make use only of mathematical language and symbols; and

• Calculators were used in more lessons in the Netherlands (91 percent) than in the United States and the other countries (ranging from 31 to 56 percent); computers were actually used in relatively few eighth-grade mathematics lessons across all the countries (ranging from 2 to 9 percent of lessons; there were too few to estimate in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and the United States).

Copies of the TIMSS 1999 Video Study results are available on request and on the NCES Web site at http://nces.ed.gov/timss. For general information on TIMSS, please visit the NCES Web site, contact the TIMSS customer service number at 202/502-7421, or send an e-mail to timss@ed.gov.

###

Top

Back to March 2003